Episode 491: Jay "Jeezy" Jenkins: The $4M Bet That Built an Empire + His 7-Question Mentor Method

From cutting lawns for $5-$10 each to building a business empire worth millions, Jay Jenkins has never played it safe. In this episode of Habits and Hustle, I sit down with the artist better known as Jeezy for a raw conversation about betting everything on yourself. We discuss why he spent $4 million of his own money before getting signed, and the unconventional way he built relationships with mentors like Tony Robbins and Robert Greene. We also dive into his transition from music mogul to business empire builder, his upcoming Vegas residency with a 101-piece orchestra, and why he believes pain is a prerequisite for leadership. Jeezy is a Grammy-nominated rapper, entrepreneur, and New York Times bestselling author. He's built million-dollar businesses including Avion Tequila, launched his own energy drink Edge, and is known for his mentorship programs and philanthropic work through his Street Dreams Foundation. What We Discuss: (03:00) From lawn mowing to watermelon entrepreneur: His first business ventures (07:00) Why he spent $4 million of his own money before getting a record deal (14:00) His secret "board of directors" including Tony Robbins, Robert Greene, and TD Jakes (20:00) The seven-question strategy that gets him face time with billionaires (27:00) Building and selling Avion Tequila: The $100M+ exit strategy (35:00) Why he gave away half a million mixtapes for free (46:00) Mental health, self-development, and finding peace after chaos (51:00) The Vegas residency with 101-piece orchestra that's making history (54:00) Why Tony Robbins doubles his charity donations every year ...and more! Thank you to our sponsors: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com http://therasage.com/ and use code Be Bold for 15% off Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com http://airdoctorpro.com/ and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Magic Mind: Head over to www http://www/.magicmind.com http://magicmind.com//jen and use code Jen at checkout. Momentous: Shop this link https://www.livemomentous.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorDUIZz3psr1Qsq_n1yE8_6JTq_QUFabOO9lH65HDEXCIoJOPLj and use code Jen for 20% off Manna Vitality: Visit mannavitality.com and use code JENNIFER20 for 20% off your order Prolon: Get 30% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit https://prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN and use code JENNIFERCOHEN to claim your discount and your bonus gift. Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen https://www.instagram.com/therealjencohen/ Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Jay "Jeezy" Jenkins: Instagram: @jeezy https://www.instagram.com/jeezy/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:06Jen Cohen?

  All right, you guys. Today, we have a special guest on the show. He goes by Jeezy, right? Young Jeezy, right? That's what my husband told me, right? And first of all, thanks for coming on the show. We're going to talk about all your business ventures, your new biggest project in Vegas. So, thank you for being on the show.

• 0:24Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me.

• 0:25Jen Cohen?

  Of course. We do this thing on the podcast. We take healthy performance shots. They're called Magic Mine, and they're like kind of to keep you like focused, and it's all healthy stuff. So, it's like ashwagandha. Are you into health at all?

• 0:37Speaker 00

  Yes, for sure.

• 0:37Jen Cohen?

  Okay. Do you exercise? Are you a big workout person? Okay. So, then you'd like these. So, they're very, basically, we just like shake them. We like do a quick cheers, and then we're off to the races. So, it's just a bunch of like healthy ingredients to keep you like on point. You're gonna, you're gonna know in two seconds. It tastes good. It's actually really good.

• 0:57Speaker 00

  It is good.

• 0:58Jen Cohen?

  It is good, right?

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's good.

• 0:59Jen Cohen?

  And now, you're gonna be super alert and super focused for the rest of the show.

• 1:02Speaker 00

  Let's do it.

• 1:03Jen Cohen?

  All right. So, I wanted to ask you, where did you even get the name Jeezy from?

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Well, growing up, there was an era where a New Orleans rap syndicate that was called Cash Money was taking over the world, and it was like where Lil Wayne came from and all these guys. And they had these nicknames like BG and Jizzle and all that stuff. And around that time, I was becoming a hot boy because I was actually like hustling and getting my first entrepreneur job on. And the people in my neighborhood used to call me Jeezy because of my voice. Like, my name is Jay.

• 1:37Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 1:38Speaker 00

  They called me Jeezy because that was like my hood slang name. And it just kind of fit when I started doing music because it's just like, well, what do they call you? I'm like Jeezy. And I just, and at the time, people were putting Young on their rap names.

• 1:51Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  So, I put Young Jeezy together, and that's how I came up with Young Jeezy.

• 1:55Jen Cohen?

  I love that. Okay. What, like you are, you're kind of known for being very entrepreneurial, right? So, you kind of have, you have the music side to you, and you have the business side. Can you talk about like, what was your first entrepreneurial endeavor that you ever did?

• 2:09Speaker 00

  Entrepreneurial? I think I had one job before where I actually worked with my uncle. I had a job at McDonald's for like... Five hours, they put me on the fries and I was out of there.

• 2:20Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 2:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, I'm serious.

• 2:21Jen Cohen?

  What, how old were you?

• 2:22Speaker 00

  Maybe about fourteen, fifteen.

• 2:25Jen Cohen?

  And you just hated it?

• 2:26Speaker 00

  I mean, it just because I understood right then and there, I couldn't work for anyone.

• 2:30Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  That wasn't who I was and no disrespect to nobody that does, I just understood what I was trying to do. My first entrepreneurial job was um, cutting lawns in the neighborhood. I had a lawnmower that I bought, spent about twenty dollars for it. Had my uncle help me fix it up and I would take me and my little crew, we used to go around, cut people's yards for five dollars, ten dollars, stuff like that. It was like my first thing where I had money then, if you know anything about the South and Georgia, watermelons are a big thing.

• 3:00Jen Cohen?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  So I would go out and get these trucks with my uncles and we would throw watermelons. So you would go out in the field and you pick watermelons and you throw them, throw them, throw them back until they end up on the truck and then you just keep that going. Then you go on the side of the road and you would sell the watermelons.

• 3:14Jen Cohen?

  How much did you sell them for?

• 3:16Speaker 00

  I make like twenty dollars a day.

• 3:17Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:18Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so like how many would you sell for twenty dollars?

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Well, I would make twenty dollars.

• 3:22Jen Cohen?

  Right, so how much, how much would you sell to make the twenty dollars? Like that was like.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  We pick, you know, maybe a hundred watermelons a day.

• 3:29Jen Cohen?

  That's a lot of watermelons.

• 3:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then you might not sell them all, but you might sell some here at this place, some here or there. When you get done, they would just pay everybody. Um, but the reason why I say entrepreneur because it's my uncle's company.

• 3:41Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  So to speak, I don't even think, he probably had a tax ID, but that's how he was getting paid in cash. And uh, that was like my first thing. And then coming up, the first entrepreneurs I really knew were musicians and then the local hustlers in my neighborhood. So hustling was like a, it was like a family thing, meaning like it just, the environment I was in, it was natural to hustle. And so I kind of got into that early on, like my aunties hustled, my uncles hustled, like it was just like a thing.

• 4:08Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  And I just got into it and I was good at it. So once I picked that up, I was off to the entrepreneurial race. Like I just understood, like, okay, this is the way. I'm not gonna stick with it, but I just need to use this to get to the next place, which was music. But I was hustling pretty much all my teenage years.

• 4:24Jen Cohen?

  Right, and just kind of carried through.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:27Jen Cohen?

  Right, because you don't even know any different, because that's how you always were.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I mean, it was like a thing.

• 4:31Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  You know, you're growing up in this small town, you know, you know all the police people, they know your aunties, your uncles, so you're a good kid, but they just know that you're hustling. So you're not out here causing any trouble, so you kind, I kind of, you know, hustled on my aunties' front porch, so.

• 4:46Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  That's where the song came from, had the rest of the amps in my auntie's house. Cause that was like a true, my auntie was my hustling partner. We hustled together. I used to get the money. She used to put it up for me, put it in her bra, put it in her,

• 4:57Speaker 00

  up on her mattress or whatever. And she used to do these card games, like on the weekends and all the people that came to the card games, they were pretty much my clients. So I had this tight ecosystem of people that I really trusted. They were like, you know, let me use their card, cause I was giving this or they would come like, you know, and, you know, come over house and hang out all weekend, but you know, they would spend a couple hundred dollars with me. And I was just like, learning how to like, make this um, ecosystem. So that was like my first company, I would say I built. Like it was a very lucrative country, uh, company for me to be that age.

• 5:28Jen Cohen?

  And you were, you were like really young at that point.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was like fourteen, fifteen.

• 5:31Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:32Jen Cohen?

  And then wait, so like for the, even for the music stuff, like that's like a hard business. I mean, I used, I don't know, you probably don't know this, but I used to be in the music world. I used to run marketing for BMG Music a long time ago.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  That's though.

• 5:44Jen Cohen?

  Many years ago.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 5:45Jen Cohen?

  Before I got into all these other things, but, and I know how hard it is to get signed to labels, to stay on a label, to get, you know, to, to, the whole music world is, and it's so different even today.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 5:56Jen Cohen?

  Back then, it's even more difficult in my opinion in some ways. How did you kind of go from, you know, doing what you were doing then to getting signed? And who signed you? Like, can you kind of give me the origin and like the evolution of how you even? Because it is the most, people who know, know, but people who don't know, don't know. It's a very difficult business.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  Well, well, the first thing is like, music was my, like, it was my, like, my escape. Like I listened to music every morning before school, every day I got out of school, like literally all day. But I learned from the music. So I, I just actually, it was like a course, it was like a college course. Like I just listened to music to learn. It wasn't about, same rate, same way I listen to podcasts today. I literally listen to four, five, six different podcasts throughout the day.

• 6:41Jen Cohen?

  Right, just to kind of get information, just to kind of learn things, yes.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  I'm a sponge. I just have to get it, you know, it, it, it fulfills me. And um, I used to listen to music, but I, I almost immediately understood that I was learning. Cause I would get in the situation and be like, hold on, what did Tupac say? Okay. And I would apply it and it was working. And I was learning that a lot of people that were. Around, they were kind of stuck, you know, just on the, on the, on the hamster wheel of just what was going on. But they wasn't thinking outside the box because they were just hearing the music and not visualizing what came with it. I was like, oh, you can, you know, and that's how I was applying it to my day. So, music was very important to me.

• 7:23Speaker 00

  And when I was doing what I was doing, hustling, I just, you know, I saw a lot of things happen to a lot of good people. And I was just like, okay, I can't get stuck in this because I see that there's really no win in it. And the thing that I was able to do was, I was able to use my street, you know, street smarts.

• 7:46Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  And, and just my savoir faire to convince older people that I knew these other people, that I can go get them something too and we can work this out. So that was like my MO. I would be around all the older guys and I would get their money and be like, give me two, three days, I'll be back, I'm going out of town. But literally I already had what they was looking for. I just went over to my grandmother's house and watched TV and played video games until, and that was my MO. So I built up a level of trust and all this by listening to music because I was learning through the codes. So, as it went on and I started to get into like these situations where there were life or death and, and, and, you know, freedom of, you know, jail and I was just like, okay, this, this is not going to work.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  I gotta figure out how to pivot out of this. And around that time is when the cash monies and the no limits and all this stuff was taking off. And I was like, well, maybe I could do that. So, I immediately went out and bought studio equipment, went and started signing people in the neighborhood and tried to put them, um, you know, in position to be rap superstars. I wanted to be the C- CEO. That was my thing. I wanted to be the baby or the slim of the, you know, of my thing and, um. What I learned quickly, you know, I spent lots of money for a young age. You know, I spent millions of dollars to try to put people on of my, of my money.

• 9:05Jen Cohen?

  Of your own money?

• 9:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, of my own money and it didn't work out. And then I was broke because all the, some of my artists went to prison. Some of them got locked up for murder cases and so on and so forth. And I'm sitting in this studio because I really don't got nowhere to stay at this point because I put all my money into this. So this nice apartment I had and these nice cars I had, they're all gone now because I'm trying to stay afloat. And my man looks at me, he goes, man, you might as well do it. Like it's your life, you're out here living this stuff. And I was just like, you know what? And I just started on this mission of doing it. I just started to get in and start making music from the ground up. I'm, of course, it took like 10 years and I had to kind of get myself readjusted and just, and I had to hustle even harder because now I'm supporting my own career.

• 9:48Jen Cohen?

  Right. Wow. So you did the opposite of what everybody else does.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:52Jen Cohen?

  So you went from like running the company and trying to like be like managing all these people.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  Which was a blessing because now.

• 10:00Jen Cohen?

  Now you understand the business.

• 10:02Speaker 00

  I know how to run it. You see what I'm saying? And I think that's what a lot of people miss when I'm like sitting around listening to stuff. I go, let's do that. And they're like, how you know that? Because I've already did it 30 different times.

• 10:11Jen Cohen?

  A hundred percent.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  So I know that.

• 10:13Jen Cohen?

  And also that's why so many artists get in such trouble because they don't understand the business side of the business and how things work and how things you got on the backend of stuff. So if you're coming with that kind of street savviness and business acumen, you're just ahead of the game right there in a lot of the ways.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  And it's the same, it's the same savvy that, you know, helped me secure like deals that you wouldn't normally get because I would go in these situations and, and I would be in these company meetings and I would just watch people just be in disarray, like just frantic, you know? It's like, why they, like, I'm coming from a game where the pressure is, you know, a freedom of jail, life or death. So those are the consequences. But you still gotta play the game.

• 10:52Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 10:52Speaker 00

  So if I'm sitting in the boardroom and everybody panic and I'm like, what's the worst could happen? You lose your job. That's it.

• 10:57Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 10:58Speaker 00

  Everybody calm down. You know what I'm saying?

• 11:01Jen Cohen?

  That's so true.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  You know, think clear through the chaos. It's like, what's, what's the best route? Or how can we execute this in a way? Because the thing that people don't understand is it's just like, there's no wrong way. Education costs, even if it doesn't work, you learn. You know, and I've made decisions that cost me millions of dollars and I've made decisions that didn't cost me anything. But education still costs. And I'm grateful for all the times that I was in situations. Cause you gotta think, it's all, it's all strategy. You know what I'm saying? Like when you're, when you're coming from where I came from, it's just like, I used to look at it like, I'm standing on my auntie's porch. How can I get to this, from this mailbox on the front porch to where I need to go? How many steps is that in life?

• 11:45Speaker 00

  And when you go back and you just retrace all your steps, you had mishaps, you had let ups, let downs. You had, you know, you had times where you didn't even know how you was gonna get to the next meal, but you made it through. So knowing that in this world at this time, I don't really worry about much because I know if I don't have the answers. I built up a, a network of people that I can really call and have real conversations with about things that I need to navigate or, or strategy. And they're very respected people, but I think they see a lot of me, you know, what they saw in themselves when they were young. Yeah.

• 12:18Jen Cohen?

  Do you have like one mentor or one person that kind of is your like, like guide that helps you with this stuff?

• 12:24Speaker 00

  I got a gang of like board, I got a.

• 12:27Jen Cohen?

  Board of directors?

• 12:28Speaker 00

  It's, it's insane.

• 12:30Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 12:30Speaker 00

  Oh my gosh, it's, it's insane. It's like, you wouldn't, I mean, it's just like, I don't really like the name because people are like, you know, but it's Tony Robbins. It's the Robin Shermer's, it's the Robin, the Robert Greene's, it's the.

• 12:44Jen Cohen?

  I love Robert Greene.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  I love Robbins.

• 12:46Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. It's great. In fact, actually, he's a, I'm, I'm very good friends with him and, and he's running a new book. It's almost finished. You know about this? I was just gonna say to you, do you know the book Forty Eight Laws of Power? Because you would probably love it.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  I really tapped into him for, for the law of attraction though.

• 13:01Jen Cohen?

  A lot of that, that, well, he's got a billion laws of human nature, the mastery, so many.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  That's why I really tapped in from him.

• 13:09Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  You know what I'm saying? And me and Robert used to literally, when I was home in LA, we used to get up like once a month, go to the LA Fitness Club and have tea and, and.

• 13:18Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 13:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:19Jen Cohen?

  I love it.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  You know what I'm saying? Just have real, you know, you help me out with stuff with my son and give me some advice. I give him some advice about culture, but like me and Robert, like we hang out.

• 13:29Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, me too. That's great.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's brilliant.

• 13:31Jen Cohen?

  I love that.

• 13:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:32Jen Cohen?

  So then how did, I mean, like also have you seen that?

• 13:35Speaker 00

  John Maxwell too. I love John.

• 13:37Jen Cohen?

  Oh, I don't know John Maxwell.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  He's amazing. He's one of the.

• 13:41Jen Cohen?

  He's a one, I know, like I see his name all the time.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  I've ever seen. His communication skills are.

• 13:45Jen Cohen?

  Cause I see his clips sometimes and I do, I like his perspective.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:50Jen Cohen?

  I should reach out to him to be on the show.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  Another one is Lewis Howes. I love Lewis.

• 13:54Jen Cohen?

  Oh, I know Lewis too.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  That's my guy.

• 13:56Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  Lewis is a great person.

• 13:58Jen Cohen?

  Have you been on his show yet?

• 13:58Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 13:59Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I was gonna say.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  I talk to Lewis all the time.

• 14:01Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  He's a great guy.

• 14:02Jen Cohen?

  He's a nice guy. Um, who else? We probably have a lot of mutual friends actually.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  I mean, you name them all, but that's the thing. I mean, once I became an author, that opened a lot of doors too. But I really love Robin Sharma as well. Like he's.

• 14:12Jen Cohen?

  He's great.

• 14:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. Dave Gibson is another amazing one. He's, he's, he's, yeah. So I, I have a lot of resources when it comes to that. But these are real relationships, but they're my board of advisors. Like they notice, like I can call Tony Robbins and be like, hey.

• 14:25Jen Cohen?

  What do you think of this?

• 14:25Speaker 00

  Lay it on me, Jeezy. But then he'll call me about stuff too, and I respect that. You know what I'm saying? But you gotta understand, like you take that and you flip it back when I came from the streets. Like I talked to the guys that were in that position in the streets the same way. Like they, they actually got advice from me.

• 14:41Jen Cohen?

  I was gonna say, do you have like a group of people that you mentor?

• 14:45Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 14:45Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, I got programs, uh, Young CEO Program with the Urban League, uh, the Urban League of Georgia, Greater Georgia. Um, I got my Street Dreams Foundation. So we got a lot of stuff there. And then, you know, I just do my own mentoring, like as far as culture wise, I'm not a, um, I'm not a, what would I say? I'm not a. Role model, you know what I'm saying? I'm not that, but I do have a set of skills. Like the guy said on the transporter.

• 15:12Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I was gonna say.

• 15:13Speaker 00

  I have a set of skills when it comes to living life that I'm very serious about. And I don't mind sharing the information because I know it changed my life, you know?

• 15:22Jen Cohen?

  What are some of the skills, the set of skills that you live by? That you're, that you live by?

• 15:29Speaker 00

  I think integrity is a skill. I think it's a skill set. You know what I'm saying? And I think that it will get you, it's a, it's a slow grind, but it will get you farther than anything. Because you never know how much your past will affect you until 10 years later. And people go, he was that way 10 years ago. He's, Jesus, he's solid. You need that, you know, for people to trust you. You know what I'm saying? And to let you into their world. I have people like, because I had, you know, I was rough around the edges. So I had a lot of things that, you know, I wasn't proud of. But people know that deep down inside, I was still a good person. And they would say that. You know, it's like, you know, he just came from a, you know, rough beginnings. But he's, he's actually, you know, he's a great person. Just sit down and talk to him. And they helped me out a lot. Because it was one time I was like

• 16:14Speaker 00

  getting banned in radio stations. I couldn't even come in and promote my projects.

• 16:17Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, just because of the things that I was affiliated with, that people were, you know, just like, oh, my God, like, he's terrible. But I was just caught up in a situation. And I was also trying to help these misfits navigate stuff. Because I just was the one that saw around the corner. I was the prophet.

• 16:33Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 16:33Speaker 00

  I was like, gosh, like, we can, we can do something great with this. I mean, it's, it's bad now. Doesn't look good. You know, nobody likes us.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  But we can, we can make this something great. And I think that that, I was the voice of reason, you know?

• 16:47Jen Cohen?

  And also perseverance. Like, so how did you, like, so if one of your skills now is integrity, how did you kind of go from where you were to where you've become? Where now you're kind of known for being someone with integrity and someone who's a good person?

• 17:00Speaker 00

  Uh, staying curious, right? And also not being afraid to like think outside of the box. You know what I'm saying? Like I'll do things that people like last year I took a trip to Italy, a solo trip, you know, by myself and just really wanted to kind of just find myself and get centered. But in the middle of that, you know, I called Robin Sherman. I don't know if you know his, his books. He did, um, the Muck Sodas Ferrari, the 5am Club.

• 17:25Jen Cohen?

  He just had a new book coming out.

• 17:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, the, uh, the wealth the money can't buy, something like that.

• 17:30Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  But I just actually called him. I was like, yo, you gonna be in Tuscany on Wednesday? He's like, I'm here. I was like, I'll be there, I'll be there Tuesday. I'm gonna come by the house, went by his house, sat out with him by his pool, looked at his, you know, his wine venue and we just sat out there and talked. And I was like, hey, I got seven questions. We had this conversation. I was like, you mind if I break out my pad? He's like, no. And we just sat there and he just answered all my questions and it got so good. He took my pad and started writing down his own answers, like what about this? What about that? And I know what he charges people to mentor them. And he asked me, he was like, um, cause you know, we had lunch, so we had all this food. And he was like, where are all your people? And I was like, I came by myself. My spirit told me to come sit down and talk to him. And he looked at me and said, you're very brave. I never thought about it. I just got on the plane because I wanted to talk to him and ask some things I was trying to work through.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  But to me, that's like, that's thinking outside the box.

• 18:19Jen Cohen?

  That's amazing. You just like one day you're like, or you just thought, you know, I'm gonna go to Tuscany, jump on a plane and ask him seven questions.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 18:27Jen Cohen?

  Did you have the seven questions written down?

• 18:29Speaker 00

  I did.

• 18:29Jen Cohen?

  Can you share one of the questions?

• 18:31Speaker 00

  Oh, it was actually about speaking.

• 18:33Jen Cohen?

  Oh, but speaking?

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, one of the questions were, was about speaking, like, cause I wanted to get into speaking.

• 18:37Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  So I just wanted to talk to him about what his process was to get to where he at and, and his speaking. And he just gave me the whole breakdown, how it's structured, how it's set up, where I need to start, what are the punchlines? How do you come on the stage? What's the posse you take? How do you get people into it? How do you make everybody clap to get on the stage? Like, he just gave me this whole, and he went to writing it down. And, uh, same thing with John Maxwell, you know what I'm saying? With seven questions and he loved that, you know? Actually, I got that from John Maxwell.

• 19:03Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 19:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:04Jen Cohen?

  To add, to come with seven questions?

• 19:06Speaker 00

  Seven questions and they better be good.

• 19:08Jen Cohen?

  Better be good.

• 19:09Speaker 00

  And, and I got that from John. So when I got with John, I was like, John, I got seven questions for you. He just, he, he just was laughing. He was like, my friend, you're so good at this. And I was like, yo, I, I need the answers. We became like really close.

• 19:27Jen Cohen?

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• 20:09Jen Cohen?

  Visit livemomentous.com and use my code JEN for 35% off your first subscription. That's livemomentous.com code JEN for 35% off your first subscription. Trust me, you'll be happy you did.

• 20:35Jen Cohen?

  What was the one question you asked John Maxwell?

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Oh, I asked him about music to entrepreneurship because John was a pastor, and he ended up being a leader for leaders. Like, what he does now is leadership. And I asked him, how do you go? I said, how do you leave from one thing to go to the next thing? And he said, you don't leave something, you go to something. So you're not leaving music. You go into this new life you want to go to that'll always be there, but you're not leaving it. So don't put in your mind that you're leaving something because you feel like you're losing something, but you're not. You're actually just going to something else, and that's okay.

• 21:11Jen Cohen?

  That's a really good reframe, actually.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  And TD Jakes was the same thing because his entrepreneurship is like.

• 21:18Jen Cohen?

  I love him.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  And I'm like, I'm like, Bishop.

• 21:21Jen Cohen?

  He's great.

• 21:22Speaker 00

  Explain to me this. And he was just like, um, he said, well, the reason you messed up, brother Jeezy. As I told him, is because you're putting this stigma on me. You're judging me because I'm a bishop. But I was, I was an entrepreneur first. How about that? So I could be two things.

• 21:40Jen Cohen?

  That's right. Exactly.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  And I was just like, oh, okay.

• 21:44Jen Cohen?

  It's true.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. But I mean, you know, coming from where you come from, it's just like, the mentality is either or. It's sad to say.

• 21:51Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 00

  Cause you don't feel like you can do two things great. You know what I'm saying? It's almost a miracle to do one thing great. But it's just like when you can do two things great, but I think you should give yourself that grace. And understand like anything is possible if you work hard at it.

• 22:06Jen Cohen?

  I think this was also, it sounds to me that like you seek out people who are, that you kind of respect and admire. And try to like lean something from them, like learn something from these people. And I like this idea. I just learned that. Like I was, as you were talking, I'm like, this idea of doing seven questions. A, it's very focused and it keeps you focused and on point. And then like people know, like there's like kind of like a structure.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Right.

• 22:31Jen Cohen?

  Where you can like kind of stay within. So you can learn more. They know. That's a very good thing for people.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  Intentional and you're not rambling.

• 22:38Jen Cohen?

  It's intentional. Exactly. I think that's a really good point for anybody who's listening because I don't like, for me even, for a lot of people, right? Like you have people who reach out to you and they don't even know what they want to do, what they want to talk about.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 22:51Jen Cohen?

  And then it's like, it's left on the person to figure it out for them. But if I think people would have a lot more success if they approached somebody with like, I have five questions for you. I have, it's an intentional amount of things.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  But also taking the intentional time to get to the point where you can ask.

• 23:07Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 23:08Speaker 00

  Having the clarity, taking the time and like really, you know, diving in and not like rushing the process of like, just because you can know this person, you want to ask them like, I thought about this Tuscany trip for a while and I was like, you know, I really need to go get some time in with him and I want to, want to talk to him. And I also want to see. See what he's doing that I don't understand. I met to a lot of people's houses, but when I got to his house, I clearly understood what was going on. I've never seen that type of beauty in my life.

• 23:33Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 23:33Speaker 00

  Oh, no, ever. It's just like the rolling hills, the wine vineyards, the olive trees, the mountain top with the snow. And like, this is his view.

• 23:42Jen Cohen?

  Wow.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  From his pool, and I'm just going like. And when I left, I clearly understood there's a difference between living and the quality of life.

• 23:53Jen Cohen?

  That's a good one, too.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  You know what I'm saying? Like, it was clearly a difference, and I'm going like, oh, okay. Because sometimes we get caught up in the wrong things based on our environment, right? We think that having the right car or the right jet or the right this or the right that is the thing, but it doesn't change the quality of life. I can see why he's writing the type of books he's writing. I'm looking at the room that he's sitting in while he's writing, and I'm going like, how could you not?

• 24:15Jen Cohen?

  Right, exactly.

• 24:16Speaker 00

  Right, there's so much inspiration there, and I just, I remember leaving and telling my, um, one of my business partners at the time, like, sell all the cars, sell all the, he's like, what is going on? I don't need it, you know what I'm saying? Because I was like, I'm cool, like, I'm, I want to live a simple life. You know, I actually want to get a place over in Tuscany, like, I want to do.

• 24:33Jen Cohen?

  Are you gonna move there?

• 24:34Speaker 00

  One thousand percent.

• 24:35Jen Cohen?

  When?

• 24:36Speaker 00

  Soon.

• 24:36Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 24:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's happening.

• 24:38Jen Cohen?

  I love that. So you're basically, you make like, I like, but that's what's good about this stuff. Because it's one thing if you just do that and just have these ideas and don't really act on them.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 24:48Jen Cohen?

  But you're actually, you take it to the next, like, I think that's where people get stuck. They don't take action.

• 24:53Speaker 00

  Well, it has to be a part of your, your.

• 24:55Jen Cohen?

  Not everyone can move to, I know not everyone can move to Tuscany, but what I'm saying, whatever it is, it doesn't matter.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  It may be on the other side of town, you know what I'm saying?

• 25:02Jen Cohen?

  It could be whatever, yeah.

• 25:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it's just like.

• 25:03Jen Cohen?

  Changing your environment.

• 25:04Speaker 00

  You gotta aspire to do it, and you gotta know how you want to live your life, like, what really matters to you.

• 25:09Jen Cohen?

  A hundred percent.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  And that matters to me because I know what type of state of mind that will put me in. You know, peace is like something, I mean, coming from chaos, you know, you don't, you want, you wouldn't want peace if you didn't come from chaos. And like, to me, like, the end goal is peace, is like to be somewhere where I'm great, I'm good. My focus is world-class, I'm not just thinking like, you know, just neighborhood or city stuff or, you know, you know, just being in the United States, it's like, it's such a world out there.

• 25:37Jen Cohen?

  Huge world, I know.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  And there are people that really want to help you and really want to pour into you, and it's tough that they can, um, actually like, you know, help you to understand because it's just like a world-class view of things, right? And it's like. For a person like myself who's pouring back into my culture, I want to have a world-class view. So when I'm having these conversations or I'm doing these speaking engagements, I'm thinking and coming from a world-class level. So I'm not just giving you this stuff that's just, you know, cookie cutter because I feel like I have a voice. It's like, no, I'm actually going out and doing the work.

• 26:10Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 26:11Speaker 00

  I'm having the conversations. I'm doing the research. I'm taking the time to go have the solitude to come up with these business plans. Like I've done great business deals just on the surface. I mean, I bought and sold Avion Tequila to Pernod Ricard. You know, I've done crazy real estate deals. I've.

• 26:28Jen Cohen?

  What's the best deal? Give me an example of your most profitable, most lucrative business deal.

• 26:32Speaker 00

  I would say Avion Tequila.

• 26:34Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, it's a big one.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  Shout out to my mentor and business partner, Ken Austin. He sold NetJets to Warren Buffett and he started Avion Tequila. He built it. I came in, he had the top. I was like, Ken, you just need the bottom. And he's like, what do you mean? I was like, well, you have all these high-end hotels. You have all this thing, but you don't have culture. And he's like, tell me about it. And I told him, I'll tell you about it, but I'm gonna need some equity. You know what I'm saying?

• 26:58Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:59Jen Cohen?

  I didn't know you were even involved in that deal.

• 27:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was his partner. I had stock, share, everything in there, yeah.

• 27:05Jen Cohen?

  That wasn't in my notes. I had no idea.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  I had to buy out, yeah, the whole thing.

• 27:08Jen Cohen?

  That's a really good one.

• 27:09Speaker 00

  I mean, yeah, I mean, after it was sold, I had to kind of sit down and think about that. I don't want to make music anymore. I was like, hmm, this was different. You know what I'm saying? Because it was like, you know, probably one of the biggest accomplishments I had outside of music.

• 27:22Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 27:23Speaker 00

  And outside of touring. And I loved it. I understood it, but you gotta go back to the hustling mentality. I knew how to, you know, mobilize people on the block and I knew how to make things hot. And I knew how to navigate things. So I understood it by being in that environment. I'm, I was in all the clubs before I was doing music. I watched it, like I watched, literally watched when Patron took off. Meaning like I was in the conversation. Like I was standing right there when the guy said, hey, we don't have any more 1800. We got Patron. And I looked at my man, he was like, let's do that. And I watched it go from that moment to the world. Cause that's how much of a grip we had on culture. You know what I'm saying?

• 28:02Jen Cohen?

  It's amazing.

• 28:03Speaker 00

  I literally looked at it. I saw it. Moet Rosé, same thing. They'll tell you that. Moet will tell you that. We did that. Nobody was holding bottles in the club and all that. And I'm just saying that's a minute way of thinking about it, but I'm saying like.

• 28:15Jen Cohen?

  It's not actually. I think it's a great way of looking at it.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  But I'm looking at it from a world-class level of you see that go from culture to mainstream. But I'm looking at it and I'm seeing, oh, all you gotta do is stand beside it and do this or that. And people will be like, okay, that's the new thing. That's what we're doing. And I think that that's what I brought to Avion. It was like, how do you mobilize a group of people to like something at one time? And that's the skill set I had, you know, and that's another skill set mobilized. You know what I'm saying? You can't, most people can't get people together. I knew that coming up early on. I'm making these songs and I'm filling arenas. I'm doing tours with Jay-Z, Rihanna and all these people. But people are reciting every word that I'm saying for an hour, hour and a half, every word, right? You tell me we're president, you're gonna get to go up there and say any speech that people are gonna recite for an hour and a half.

• 29:03Jen Cohen?

  I know, yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  Right. That's, that's, that's power.

• 29:06Jen Cohen?

  That is.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  And that's the difference because when I got into the music game, it wasn't about the money. I understood almost instantly that it was a position of leadership. Now, what am I gonna do with this leadership? Because I was already leading when I was in my other environment. Because I wasn't the toughest. I didn't have to be, but I was the smartest.

• 29:25Jen Cohen?

  That's a hundred percent true. That's, that's such a good point. What do you think it is about your personality that you, because I think what you just said, like, it's kind of like a mobile, like mobilizing, building community, getting people to like do what you want. That's a really, like, very, very particular skill set that most people cannot do.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:45Jen Cohen?

  Right? Either you, I don't think that's even something that's necessarily, you can't teach somebody that. I think you either have that or you don't.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  I think it's in your heart.

• 29:53Jen Cohen?

  It is. I think so too.

• 29:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's like your heart because people. What I mean by it's in your heart is like you got the heart to love and protect people, but then you got the heart to face anything. You're fearless.

• 30:06Jen Cohen?

  Like courage and bravery.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, like you're fearless.

• 30:09Jen Cohen?

  Fearless, yeah.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  You already, because in my mind, back then, I was ready to die for it. I was like Malcolm X, like, whatever, let's do it. But as you begin to get knowledge, you're like, well, I don't have to think about it like that, but let me just, you know, work on myself so that I can be the best version of myself. So now I have emotional intelligence. I don't get upset about things. Because me getting upset about things could shift everything because everybody's gonna move with my energy. And back then, my energy was like really in the streets. So I can turn half of the world against half of the world. Imagine that. Like, I can literally do that. You know what I'm saying? Just because I got up and said, you know what, I don't like that person or that. And wherever I put that energy at, you're talking about a whole coast of people that's gonna align with that because they align with me.

• 30:54Speaker 00

  And once I started to understand, I'm like, okay, well, how can I use this for, you know, for good, right? But that's not a popular decision, so I had to fight through that. Because now people are looking at you like, well, how you lead us to this point? But then you wanna switch up and do something that's positive. This doesn't make sense. But the people who understood the bigger vision stayed around, and the people who didn't, they fell to the wayside, and that's okay. But now I'm in a different place, and my focus is different, and my vision is different, and the way I carry myself is different because this is what I was working on the whole time. Because I understood that, once I got to this position, that I can do world-class things. And not just things where it's like, you know, um, he did a, you know,

• 31:36Speaker 00

  I would hate to just be this person who just made great music. That would just tear me up. I don't want my kids just to know that I just made great songs. I mean, we all do. You know, when I think about Bob Marley, it's just like, look at all the great he did, though.

• 31:50Jen Cohen?

  Right, so you wanna be much more robust and like, kind of well-rounded.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  Well-rounded, Renaissance man, that's why I come.

• 31:55Jen Cohen?

  Right, so what's your main focus now? So you've kind of, you've had a lot of evolutions, right? Like, you had the, well, I didn't know about the Avion one. Is there another one? What's another one that's really big, by the way?

• 32:06Speaker 00

  Uh, Defiance Fuel, which was Athlete's Water. And we did very well. Defiance Fuel.

• 32:11Jen Cohen?

  Oh, Defiance Fuel, okay. You have an energy drink, though, now called Edge. You didn't bring me one, though.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, I should have brought one, especially with this coffee. So Edge is, um... It's an energy drink that also doubles as a mixer.

• 32:22Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  So we coming for Red Bull, let them know.

• 32:25Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I'll tell them.

• 32:27Speaker 00

  Let them know. We also, you know, right now is just like, you know, we just did the book. Adversity for sale, New York Times bestseller.

• 32:36Jen Cohen?

  Congratulations.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  Thank you, that's something I always wanted. So that worked out for the best. Right now, my focus for this year and the rest of 20, or the rest of 25, has been on, you know, this tour that I wanted to do that was a vision of mine, that I wanted to elevate my culture with, which was an orchestra tour.

• 32:53Jen Cohen?

  That's so great. I saw that. That's like a hundred-piece orchestra, right?

• 32:57Speaker 00

  Well, that's the one that we bring into Vegas. So the one we just took around the southeast and the Midwest was a thirty-something piece.

• 33:03Jen Cohen?

  Oh, wow, okay.

• 33:03Speaker 00

  And a black tie event, sold out, totally. It was one of the most just amazing experiences I've ever been a part of. And I wanted to bring it out to the West Coast, so we just got a residency. We're playing in Hollywood.

• 33:16Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  And we're doing the masquerade on November 31st. I mean, October 31st, November 1st. Those are the two dates for that.

• 33:25Jen Cohen?

  Right, I saw that.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  And then we're doing the Nutcracker on the 19th and the 21st of December. And this is at Planet Hollywood. And it's also the 20-year anniversary of my first album, which is The Motivation 101 that came out in 05. And I'm bringing a hundred and one-piece orchestra. Shout out to the Color of Noah's Orchestra.

• 33:47Jen Cohen?

  Wow.

• 33:48Speaker 00

  Adam Blackstone, Derek Hodges. And on my birthday, I don't know when this is airing, I'm actually releasing a mixtape slash album with DJ Drama. Slash album with DJ Drama. It's called Still Snowing. And I'm, it's releasing on the 28th of September. I don't know when this is airing, but. And also DJ Drama and I, this is how I got on, by pressing up mixtapes and giving them out. It's how I built my career.

• 34:13Jen Cohen?

  That's, well, that's how all, that's how everyone builds their career. You actually gave out all the mixtapes.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, for free, though, like.

• 34:19Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, did you probably going around the streets and do it? How many do you think you gave away?

• 34:22Speaker 00

  About half a million.

• 34:23Jen Cohen?

  A half a million?

• 34:24Speaker 00

  For sure. Yeah.

• 34:26Jen Cohen?

  How much did that cost just to make a hundred million, sorry, half a million mixtapes? Probably cost you like a hundred thousand, even back then.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  No, I probably, between that and my first album, I probably spent about four million dollars.

• 34:37Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 34:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:39Jen Cohen?

  And your own, like, because at that point, you had no money.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  And that's why I tell anyone to bet on themselves, because I watch people sit there and budget things out. And I'm just like, I don't even think like that. Let's go.

• 34:52Jen Cohen?

  Really? So tell us how you think. Tell us how people should.

• 34:55Speaker 00

  There's no bottom line on it.

• 34:58Jen Cohen?

  You'll just spend how much it needs to be spent?

• 35:00Speaker 00

  But I'm not just spending like a maniac. I'm definitely thinking about what I'm doing, but I'm not cutting any corners when it comes to my legacy, my future, and changing the quality of life for the people around me, because you have to take the risk.

• 35:14Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  And if you're counting peanuts and you're trying to make, you're not taking a risk. You have to break the glass ceiling. How you gonna do that by spending your own? I've never took anybody's money. When I made my records, when I was signed to Def Jam, I paid for my own records.

• 35:27Jen Cohen?

  You did?

• 35:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I get my money back. But it's just like, because if I get your money, then I might treat it like it's free money. But if I'm spending my money, I'm gonna work.

• 35:37Jen Cohen?

  You're gonna work?

• 35:38Speaker 00

  I'm gonna work.

• 35:39Jen Cohen?

  That's so, exactly true. The only way to know a value of a dollar is when it's your own money, right?

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. And of course, you're gonna save when you can, but it's just like, you know, some people are like, you know, I got hundreds of dollars, I'm gonna, you know, invest it in this. And I'm like, yeah, but you know, if you got two fifty, let's go.

• 35:55Jen Cohen?

  That's right.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  What's the difference? Like, it's all the same.

• 35:58Jen Cohen?

  What did you spend the four million on? So you got the mixtapes, a half a million mixtapes?

• 36:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:03Jen Cohen?

  That's great. What else?

• 36:05Speaker 00

  I mean, you know, producers, studio time, marketing, videos.

• 36:12Jen Cohen?

  What kind of marketing back then did you do?

• 36:14Speaker 00

  Well, the biggest thing was the Snowman marketing, which is my alias, Snowman. And, because the only competition I got is Frosty. We're gonna get into that. But, um. I branded myself with Snowman and making all these T-shirts. Where I gave away these Snowman T-shirts to promote my album. And that was hundreds of thousands of dollars, because a lot of T-shirts. However, these same T-shirts, CNN, well, the high schools and middle schools banned the T-shirts. And CNN made a report about it.

• 36:48Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was, it was a big deal, yeah.

• 36:51Jen Cohen?

  What were the T-shirts? Just Frosty, you said?

• 36:53Speaker 00

  Well, the Snowman was on the T-shirt.

• 36:54Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  My emblem of it, but they were saying what it represented. And they thought it represented like drug dealing, street stuff and all that.

• 37:01Jen Cohen?

  Really? The best press you ever got?

• 37:04Speaker 00

  Best press I ever got.

• 37:04Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, best press you ever got. Back then also, CNN was a big deal.

• 37:08Speaker 00

  Well, the other best press I ever got was when I was coming around, I was doing my work. And I actually made this song on my third album called My President Is Black. And it blew up right around the time Obama was running for president.

• 37:23Jen Cohen?

  For president, yeah.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  And I did all these campaigns where I was renting all these buses and bringing all these people in for the neighborhood to vote. And I did it with the radio station and had lawyers go into the neighborhoods and talk to people that was convicted felons and tell them they could still vote. And boom, it just became this cultural classic. And I got invited to a correspondent's dinner. And when I got there, the Secret Service told my security I can't come in, clearly because of my past, you know what I'm saying?

• 37:48Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  And I felt the way, because I bought a Tom Ford suit. I was like, I was ready.

• 37:52Jen Cohen?

  Oh.

• 37:53Speaker 00

  And they told me I couldn't come in. And, you know, I kind of left with my head down and I was on tour in Europe about, about four years later. My mom called me, she was like, baby, she's like, Obama just shouted you out last night. And I was like, you don't mess with me. She was like, I'm gonna see, get your sister to send it to you. And he said, on my first term, I sang Al Green. This is at a correspondent's dinner. He said, my second term, I'm singing Young Jeezy. Michelle likes that. And I was just like, my God.

• 38:18Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 38:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that was, that was definitely a big moment, yeah. That was great press, by the way.

• 38:23Jen Cohen?

  That's great press.

• 38:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And he actually wrote me a letter. It was weird.

• 38:29Jen Cohen?

  What did it say?

• 38:29Speaker 00

  I did a documentary, so I've, I've been executive producer on a lot of documentaries. And I did this documentary on Hulu called Hip Hop in the White House. And I kind of told this story and talked about, you know, all the stuff I did for him. And he just wrote me this letter. One of my guys called me, he's like, hey, man, one of Obama's guys just called me, he wants an address on you. I'm like, don't give it to him. Might be coming to pick me up. He's like, no, I think it's good.

• 38:54Jen Cohen?

  Don't give a.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  You're right. Cause I didn't know what was going on. And I get it and I open it up and there's a letter and there's a space. You're like, man, just thank you for everything you're doing for the culture, your people, and we appreciate you. And thank you for everything you've done for me. And I was just like, wow. Yeah, I hung it up on my wall. It was like, it was a big deal.

• 39:12Jen Cohen?

  That is really amazing.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I showed it to my daughter. She's like, yeah, whatever.

• 39:16Jen Cohen?

  Of course, she doesn't care. Isn't that funny how like something that we were so upset about, right? Where you walk in, they wouldn't let you in, but it comes back full circle in a different way.

• 39:25Speaker 00

  That's why I say you just gotta go. Because you just gotta take the first step. Like you never, everything I've ever done, it never worked. It always came back better at the right time. And that's my prayer every morning, but clearly that's the big guy's MO.

• 39:43Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  He waiting till you're ready. If you're not ready and everything you're going through, he preparing you for the next step. You know what I'm saying? Because he can't give you what you're not ready for. You're gonna drop the ball, you know? And it's just like, that's a real thing. And I think for a lot of people, a lot of musicians, a lot of this is about money, status, you know, women, cars, jewelry, whatever. But to me, this is, this is my purpose. Like there's nothing else in the world I could do. I've tried.

• 40:09Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right. Didn't work out yet.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  This is it. You know what I'm saying? And I'm all in, and it's every day, you know? It's like nothing comes before my purpose, but my key isn't God. But it's just like, I'm locked in because I know that I have to navigate this very well because this is a real shot. From where I'm coming from, what I've been through, people don't make it. You know, I lost more than I ever gained. And that's people too as well. And when you see that and you get in a position like this, I'm blessed. Like I get up, I get to do what I love. I get to live this amazing, my life is like a vacation. You know what I'm saying? Of course, I gotta work, but at the same time, I'm still able to touch people. I'm still able to push the envelope. I'm still being able to do things on my terms because I started off betting on myself.

• 40:50Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 40:50Speaker 00

  So me going out on this orchestra tour and putting my own, my own money and my own team behind it is unheard of. It was independent. It was no, no, you know what I'm saying?

• 40:59Jen Cohen?

  Wow.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  You don't even hear about stuff like that, but all that came from the beginning.

• 41:03Jen Cohen?

  Right. Cause you sound like you just said, it seems like that's kind of always what you do.

• 41:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 41:07Jen Cohen?

  Right?

• 41:08Speaker 00

  And now taking it to Vegas and doing this hundred, that's all me. I don't have to ask anybody for permission.

• 41:13Jen Cohen?

  Well, how did you get that deal with Planet Hollywood? Did you go to them and say, I want to do this collaboration?

• 41:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, they saw everything that was going on. They would have been, I mean, they would have been crazy not to.

• 41:22Jen Cohen?

  I was gonna say, well, I was gonna say, why did they get the lucky ones? Like, why did they get it?

• 41:26Speaker 00

  They saw the vision.

• 41:27Jen Cohen?

  They saw the vision, okay.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  It was like, well, we understand. And they're dope, you know, I love Planet Hollywood. I think that they just really understood what we was doing. And it was like, no, this perfectly works with our brand. We aligned. The venue is perfect, um, you know, for the size of the orchestra. I want like, it's new equipment in there, new sound.

• 41:43Jen Cohen?

  I was gonna say, how big is it in the Planet Hollywood area?

• 41:46Speaker 00

  Uh, they hold about fifty-nine hundred.

• 41:49Jen Cohen?

  Okay, cuz that's a big, that's a huge orchestra, like a hundred pieces is a lot.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  And this, for me, it's like, well, the hundred and one is to celebrate one-on-one.

• 42:00Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  The twenty years of it. And it's never been done, so why not do it?

• 42:05Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  I was telling my team earlier today that somebody gonna come beat us. They gotta do one-fifty, one-seventy. That's on them. Let them figure that out.

• 42:11Jen Cohen?

  Well, I, exactly. But I was, I was reading this yesterday, reading your stuff yesterday, and someone was behind me. They're like, wow, he's bringing orchestra. Like, it's like, actually, it stops people in their tracks because nobody, that is very unexpected. People don't normally bring an orchestra of that caliber and that size, right? So it's, it is something that, like, I don't know how people can top that unless they bring a hundred and fifty people, a hundred and fifty pieces. I mean, there's not much else you can do.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  And the, and the thing that I love about it is we already got the proof of concept because we took it around the world and we seen what it is. And we didn't come to the West Coast. So this is strictly for the West Coast and anybody else that wanna come. So we talking the Bay, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Denver, wherever you at, just come out. We wanna make it an experience. Come on, boy, black, black, black tux, you know.

• 42:58Jen Cohen?

  And does people have to actually dress in black tie?

• 43:00Speaker 00

  Well, they're like, yeah, it was black tie.

• 43:02Jen Cohen?

  And when you did the world tour, how many places did you go?

• 43:04Speaker 00

  Twenty-three cities.

• 43:05Jen Cohen?

  Twenty-three. And for thirty-nine pieces in the, how many people were in, like, what size theaters were they?

• 43:11Speaker 00

  Four thousand.

• 43:12Jen Cohen?

  Four thousand? So like.

• 43:13Speaker 00

  Sold out, though.

• 43:14Jen Cohen?

  Sold out. But I was gonna say, like, people had to wear black tie in there, too?

• 43:18Speaker 00

  And they did. There was nothing like seeing people bringing their son. Like, yo, I brought my son. He's 21. He wanted to come see you. Got on a suit. He's so happy. Because where we come from, you only wear suits for court and funerals.

• 43:29Jen Cohen?

  That's what I see.

• 43:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it's just like, this is a celebration. You're not just celebrating 20 years of my first album. You're celebrating 20 years of you. 20 years ago, you wasn't wearing a suit. I wasn't wearing a suit. You know, a Dicky suit, but not a suit.

• 43:40Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  And not just that. Like, you want to see people celebrate it and you want them to feel good about themselves. I mean, nothing like seeing, you know, these black men in these suits. Like, because this is a, you know, this is a, this is a feeling. Like, everybody's dressed like you and you're looking good. And you ain't brought this suit out to your closet for years, you know, since you got married, probably.

• 43:59Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 44:00Speaker 00

  You know, and you bring it in, you put it on, and your girl was dressing up. And it was like so many, um, couples that came. And it was people that was flying in from out of the country. Like, people landed from Switzerland like an hour ago. And they running straight to the show. And people coming from Africa and all these other places. Yeah, it's amazing.

• 44:15Jen Cohen?

  That is amazing.

• 44:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:23Jen Cohen?

  I want to take a quick break from this episode to thank our sponsor, Therasage. Their Trillight panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where, honestly, I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle. Red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for.

• 45:04Jen Cohen?

  I personally use Therasage Trillight everywhere and all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable, and it's really effective. Head over to therasage.com right now and use code BBOLD for 15% off. This code will work site-wide. Again, head over to therasage, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com, and use code BBOLD for 15% off any of their products.

• 45:44Jen Cohen?

  So what now, like you're like very curious, obviously, and interested in doing like speaking. What would you want to speak on? Like, what would be your topic that you think that would be like what you'd want to?

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Well, self-help is big to me.

• 45:55Jen Cohen?

  Well, I can see it because of all the people that you're.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  Mental health is big. Entrepreneurship is big for me. I think it would just be something unique, a little bit blend of all that. You know what I'm saying? Because, um, like I said, I'm a sponge. Like, I'll literally get up and listen to like, you know, I mean, you name it. Like, I'm in, I'm dialed in and I'm reading the books and I'm, but I love it, you know? And it's nothing better for me. If I could be, if I can quit my job, I'll be, I'll be a student for life. That'd be my job. I'll be a world, I'll be a student forever.

• 46:25Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  If I can quit my job. And then also I love being able to help, you know, my people problem solve. Like, if it's like somebody that I'm close to, somebody that I work with, somebody that's up here or something, you know, I'm like a safe place to land where you can come. You know, I'm involved and we can have these conversations and there's no judgment. You know what I'm saying? Because I've done the work, so I'm not like, you know, I'm good with me. Like, I'm like in a place where nothing bothers me really no more. Like, it ain't about my kids, you know, anything about my family, like, I'm fine. But it's like, I'm not in a place where I'm angry at anything. Like, I'm taking the time to take care of myself. If I get too caught up, I know how to go away and get centered. You know, I could sit somewhere, you know, by myself for a month and nobody even know where I'm at.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  And I could just be there and I could just be journaling and hiking and cooking and listening to jazz and drinking wine. Like, I do my thing and then I come back and I'm ready. I'm like, okay, what we need, what we need to do?

• 47:20Jen Cohen?

  What was that thing in your life, though, that kind of did that reset for you? That you became so passionate and interested in like self-help and evolving really as a human being, personal development, I would say?

• 47:32Speaker 00

  I think it's always been there.

• 47:34Jen Cohen?

  Right, because you're always curious.

• 47:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I just think what really gave me the edge on it is, you know, shout out to my dad, he was in the military. So I lived abroad. Most of my younger life. So when I was young, I lived in Hawaii, Japan. My sushi game is impeccable. I'm like the best at that. But it gave me a world-class lens on things, right? So when my parents divorced and I had to move back to the neighborhood, I just didn't understand why people couldn't see past the neighborhood. And that frustrated me so much because I'm like, there's beaches out there. Like, there's people that don't even look like us.

• 48:12Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 48:12Speaker 00

  They're like, what are you talking about? I'm like, man, there's a world like out there. And nobody believed me.

• 48:17Jen Cohen?

  Right, because you had like a sneak peek a little bit.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  So I just, that just upset me. And then when I started to like get comfortable in where I was at, I started to realize things that, things happened that I'd never seen before. Like, people die, people get killed, people stab each other, people hurt each other, people get kicked out, people get infected, people get sick, they don't have any insurance. And you're just like, what in the hell is going on? You just left this world where everybody's okay and everybody's figuring it out. And people going to the beach on the weekends and you got friends. And I'm just like, you can't trust your friends? Like, this is crazy.

• 48:51Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 48:52Speaker 00

  And you hear about people who used to run together and they was like this close and then this one killed that one. And I'm just like, what is going on? So I think a lot of that was me saying, how can I fix this? So I spent a lot of my life trying to like figure out how to fix it. Like, what do I do? Like, how do I get involved in this? And how do I try to turn the curve? And it's just like been this uphill battle of just trying to fix it. And I had to realize one day is like, I can't fix nothing if I don't fix myself. And that's when I kind of was just like, okay, well, let me just work on me. You know, I really changed myself before I could change the world because that's going to be a harder task. And then just hope the people that align with me, that we go out here and we crusade together to do our part. But I used to have visions when I was young about how I was going to change the world. Like, I literally knew, like, I had to get out here

• 49:34Speaker 00

  and become this well-respected person so I can have some say in this. Because if not, then who better? Like, who's really, who really cares? Because once the money is made, like, you know, the MO is to walk up to the sunset. You know?

• 49:46Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  We all want to live somewhere great, but I still want to do the work, you know?

• 49:50Jen Cohen?

  Right. What was the, I guess, I know you have all these big mentors now and you get seven questions with lots of people. What would you say the best advice has ever been of all the things that you've heard that really made like a big impact on your life?

• 50:04Speaker 00

  I think the best advice that I ever got was from Dave Gibbons, one of my mentors. And he told me the education cost, like it costs, it costs money, it costs pain. And one of my other mentors told me, you're not a leader if you're not in pain. Cause it costs, it, it, it takes pain to lead. Cause I didn't understand, you know, why I was feeling the way I was feeling going through the things I was going through. And I started to really realize like, oh, I'm in this. I don't, I don't, I don't know nothing else. I couldn't wake up tomorrow and do something else. Like I'm just, I'm, I'm in this, this, this is it. And, you know, I have a lot of empathy for what people go through, especially in my culture. Because it's, it's all based on data that we don't have. It's all based on resources that we don't have.

• 50:48Speaker 00

  It's all based on the way the world is set up and how things are. And it's just like, if you can't get out of that, or you can't, people can't come into that. There's no refuge, there's no help, it's not gonna come. And once I realized that nobody's coming to save you, I'm like, okay, I gotta get out here and just do what I gotta do. And that's, that's why it was so important to me to build relationships with Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins, one of the realest people I know. There's nothing he does that he doesn't call me personally and say, hey, Jeezy, I'm getting ready to do another seminar. How many kids you got? I wanna send him some packages. I want him to come through during the pandemic. He was sending like, you know, these 20, 30, 40, 50 dollar packages for these kids to get on these, uh, to be a part of these seminars. So much so that I was able to get my family members some. You know, I called him for my sister, just the last one he did, she called me, I'm walking on fire.

• 51:33Speaker 00

  I was like, oh, no about that.

• 51:38Speaker 00

  But even like some of the people that I mentor, they don't have those type of relationships. And he'll literally call me like, Jeezy, what do you, I mean, I literally was doing a bike drive. And we was talking, he's like, why are you doing a bike drive? I said, because I feel like if you can ride a bike, you can have freedom. You can get out, you can mentally get out of where you at in these neighborhoods. And I'm doing it for these kids.

• 51:57Jen Cohen?

  Oh, wow.

• 51:57Speaker 00

  And he's like, how many bikes you gonna get? And I was like, no, 500. He's like, well, I'm gonna double it. And Tony Robbins sent those bikes. He sent the money to get the bikes.

• 52:06Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 52:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, totally real. Yeah, he on clear ride. Every year I've done my gala, we're doing another one this year on the 9th of October. Do a gala called The Snowball. And we do it for my nonprofit, Street James Foundation. Tony Robbins that donates every year. Whatever he raised, most of the time it was just magic.

• 52:26Jen Cohen?

  That's incredible. That's in Atlanta you do it?

• 52:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:28Jen Cohen?

  Yeah?

• 52:28Speaker 00

  Atlanta, yeah.

• 52:29Jen Cohen?

  That's amazing.

• 52:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:30Jen Cohen?

  By the way, you know what I think you should do? You could take it or leave it. This is my little two cents. You should do a one man show for your speak. Like you should launch speaking until like, but you're, what you should do is a one man show. Do you know what, you know how Mike Tyson did that on Broadway? Like a one man show and it crushed.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  What is it?

• 52:49Jen Cohen?

  It catapulted him into a whole other area. Did it a long time ago. Like it's, it's basically a speaking engagement, but like because you're so entrepreneurial and you're so business savvy, you would be doing it. And just how you would book, how you booked all your

• 53:05Speaker 00

  Tour dates.

• 53:06Jen Cohen?

  Tour dates. You would book that, but you would like tweak it into a different way of like branding yourself. Because you have so much life, like you have a lot of life experience, good stories, have like a really good thought, like you have the whole solid system of like how you've evolved and your personal development. Like there's so many things you can weave into your, your thing, which I think can also break into other areas and genres that would be interesting for people to listen to.

• 53:34Speaker 00

  I'll receive that. I'm gonna give Mike a call.

• 53:36Jen Cohen?

  I'm telling you, you should ask him how he did, but I'm telling you, I think you would be great. I would go watch it. My friends would go because you have so much perspective in different areas and you've come a lot, come so far that I think people would really like it.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  I would, I would love that.

• 53:50Jen Cohen?

  That's what I think.

• 53:51Speaker 00

  Thank you for that.

• 53:51Jen Cohen?

  No, you're, you're welcome.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:53Jen Cohen?

  Well, tell people again, okay, this, now you have your energy, where's your energy drinks being sold?

• 53:59Speaker 00

  Well, we basing it out of Georgia right now.

• 54:01Jen Cohen?

  Oh, so it's only in Georgia?

• 54:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're gonna start in Georgia for right now. We're gonna work out, because it's privately owned.

• 54:07Jen Cohen?

  Oh, okay. So you're only, so are you gonna have distribution?

• 54:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 54:10Jen Cohen?

  Everywhere? Okay, but just right now?

• 54:11Speaker 00

  As of now, Eagle Rock is distributing.

• 54:13Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I saw that.

• 54:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, so shout out to Eagle Rock.

• 54:15Jen Cohen?

  Shout out to Eagle Rock, whoever they are.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:19Jen Cohen?

  And if you're in Vegas or go to Vegas to see your show.

• 54:22Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 54:23Jen Cohen?

  And is the information on your website, also on Instagram?

• 54:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 54:26Jen Cohen?

  You can see everything on Instagram.

• 54:27Speaker 00

  At Jeezy, that's at J E E Z Y. You can find me there. I'm definitely on Facebook, definitely on Twitter.

• 54:35Jen Cohen?

  Do people get you confused with Jay-Z? Because everyone says, "Oh, Jay-Z."

• 54:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's my good friend. I'm the only, the only, um, yeah, yeah.

• 54:45Jen Cohen?

  Similar.

• 54:47Speaker 00

  It's, uh, it's, it's crazy.

• 54:49Jen Cohen?

  I know, but I-

• 54:49Speaker 00

  And by the way, he's, he's another one that's in my advisory board.

• 54:52Jen Cohen?

  Oh, really? No, no, of course, I know. I'm just saying, like, it's very similar, Jay-Z, Jeezy, you know what I mean? It's very similar.

• 54:58Speaker 00

  He's, um, he's dope.

• 54:59Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  But, yeah.

• 55:00Jen Cohen?

  You're dope, too.

• 55:01Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 55:01Jen Cohen?

  No, you're welcome.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  But, yeah, definitely the residency, this is gonna be special. Like, just so, just so you know out there in TV land, if you come, come witness it, but also come be a part of history. This is going down in history. Nobody's done this. This is gonna be amazing. And the Color of Noise Orchestra is something amazing.

• 55:20Jen Cohen?

  I want to see this thing.

• 55:21Speaker 00

  You should come.

• 55:21Jen Cohen?

  I want to go.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  You got, we're gonna get you a ticket, two of them.

• 55:24Jen Cohen?

  Okay, there you go. But I'm gonna hold you to that, Jeezy. Okay, I'll get you a bike for your group.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  And, um, you know, and the album, uh, will be out. I don't know when this is airing, but it should be out by the time. It's still snowing.

• 55:36Jen Cohen?

  When's your album? What's the day of the album?

• 55:38Speaker 00

  Uh, 9/28 is, I'm putting it out on my birthday, actually.

• 55:40Jen Cohen?

  Oh, like, coming up right now?

• 55:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:42Jen Cohen?

  Your birthday, 9/28? Oh, mine's September 16th. Are you a Virgo then?

• 55:46Speaker 00

  Libra.

• 55:46Jen Cohen?

  A Libra? Okay, you just missed it. Okay. Wow, okay, you have a lot of things going on. And this one-man show that you're gonna now do, right?

• 55:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We gonna, we gonna set it up for 26.

• 55:55Jen Cohen?

  There you go. Thank you so much for being on.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  Thank you for having me.

• 55:57Jen Cohen?

  Bye-bye.