 Hey, Tony Gaskins here, really just wanted to pop in, just turn my video off before I was recording cause I'm sitting in bed and I just sent an email out to the students on Tony Gaskins Academy and about my birthday sale. And I'm doing a birthday sale of 38% off of the courses, excluding the life coach certification and to celebrate my 38th birthday and I sent an email out and of course email is a form of marketing. It's going to people who have already supported me in some way, whether they got a free course or they're on the Academy. And I'm sitting here, I woke up this morning early, my wife's alarm goes off like 5.30 for her to get up with the boys to get them to school. And I woke up and I was sitting and I've been reading this morning since I got up. I'm reading a book, which I shared that book with my supporters on Patreon, those at the $50 a month level. Each book that I'll be reading this year, I'm going to share it with them just because they're supporting on a very high level. And I feel like the certain type of books that I read that I will read will benefit me on a high level. But I said all of that to say nothing. The point of this video, and I just turned on Zoom because I didn't know how to record without a camera on. So I turned on Zoom and I'm sitting here and it's 7.45 a.m. And I'm thinking, I said to myself, honestly, I'll be transparent with you. I laughed. I laughed and I said, man, it feel good to be working from bed. Like it just something about doing work, like serving my purpose, running my business, but sitting up perched in my bed. And I know it's a lot of talk about having an office and having a staff and going out in the corporate world and having this job, but I just cannot, I can't compare, I've worked for somebody. I can't compare working for somebody and going to this job, working for somebody, having to deal with people's personality, people's attitude, people's, just whatever they're going through. And then I can't compare that to my own peace of mind, my own schedule, my own rules, my own ideas and not having to answer to anyone, but myself and the people I'm serving, my clients, my customers, my students, my supporters, I just can't compare the two. I can't compare the two. And so it just kind of makes me think like, man, you know what? I really, I gotta share this and I don't know this kind of a video for the Blessed Business Tribe or for everybody, but I really, really want more people to just try to tap into your gifts, your purpose, your passion, whatever it may be, just try to tap in just to see what's there. Like I get it if you work in corporate and you know, you working, like you don't own your company and you don't wanna be an entrepreneur, I get it, it's not, entrepreneurship is not for everyone, but if there's something in you that when you say, could I, would I enjoy working for myself? But then you say, but then you say, well, I would love it, but I'm scared. I don't know how to do it. I don't know what to do. I don't know how I earn money. And I wouldn't recommend just leaving your job. A lot of people do that. I wouldn't recommend just leaving your job and just going to start your company and not having a clue what you're doing. I would recommend balancing the dream and the job and working on your gifts, your passion, your purpose, whatever it is on your days off. And I would recommend balancing for like a year or more if need be. And understanding that any and everything you wanna do, you do it one step at a time. That's the thing that a lot of people don't realize is they think that you have to have this huge grand plan. You gotta have all these connections. You gotta do all of this stuff. So I'll tell you, and I'm giving you some brand secrets some brand secrets here. And I know it'll be people that jump out there and try to beat me to it. But I take stuff one step at a time. And so if I'm trying to create something, there's a site called Upwork. And there's a site called Fiverr, F-I-V-E-R-R.com. And those sites have freelancers. So let's say I'm creating a project for the web, like a website. So right now I'm creating a website, one lane, I'm also creating an app in another lane. I'm also creating some carts, like a deck of carts in another lane. And I'm also creating a cosmetic company. So those four things going at one time. Now y'all see me show up on YouTube every day talking about love and relationships, but I do business. I do business outside of that. That's what I'm busy doing. And so let's say with the website, you go to Fiverr and get a logo made for $5, $5 to $20, there's your logo. Then there's a thing called UX UI. UX stands for user experience. UI stands for user interface. When you type in UX UI, UX slash UI on Fiverr or Upwork, it auto fills, it auto fills, you select it. And then what this is, is it's basically like a designer designing the look and feel of your website or your app. And that's the next step. Then it's, if you're doing a website, it's a web developer. Web developer, if it's a software site, like my mentor.life, my company, my mentor.life is like a software, basically. Then it's a software developer. Some people are utility men and women, so they do a little bit of everything, but a lot of times coders don't design and designers don't code. So it's two different jobs. And just one step at a time, logo, UX UI, then the developer. Then after that, it's done. So one of the websites I'm doing, I have a company that did my mentor.life. They did the design of the website. They have a designer in-house and they did the development of the website. So next week, we're gonna be testing that site. And then after it'll be done, and now that site will have an ad network on it. So when you go to a blog site, you go to these different New York times, they have ads on the site. You see the ads on the side, you see it in the middle of the articles. You see these things. And those ads earn money. It's just like this YouTube video. You'll be interrupted by ads. That's how the money is made. So with this site, this site is costing me $2,000. But when you think about the life of the ad network, it could earn $2,000 a month. So now for $2,000 investment to turn and make $12,000, $24,000 a year and then do that year after year after year. And even if it's not the ad dollars, it could be marketing dollars in the sense of pay promo. So we could write an article on that site to promote your book for $500. Well, if 50 people do that in a year, 500 times 10 is $5,000. And then $5,000 happening five times, that's $25,000. So now the $2,000 investment is made $25,000. And so that's how I look at it. Because a lot of times people, like we will blow $2,000 on just shoes, on clothes, on going out to eat. When you think about every time you go out to eat, you think about the extra shoes you buy because you like shoes. Those things don't really benefit you financially. Now, yeah, you get some, you know, feel good hormones released into your body and yeah, shoes make your feet look better and going out to eat family time or friend time or what have you. But if you're trying to have financial freedom, if you're trying to be your own boss, if you're trying to change your life in that way, then you have to look into investments. And a lot of people make it way harder than what it is when it's really just one step at a time. Just breaking it down to one step at a time. So even like with the cards that I'm creating, the card design is already created and I've already wrote the questions for the cards. And so then, so first is the card design. That's on Fiber for $20 or three different designs, $75. Then writing the content for the cards. So that's my time, that takes me some time. Then it's finding the printer for the cards, which I use a site, Alibaba, which is all of the factories in Asia, A-L-I-B-A-B-A, Alibaba.com, which is almost like, Jack Ma is the founder, Jack, J-A-C-K, Ma, M-A, he's a billionaire. So he's basically the Asian Jeff Bezos. And Alibaba is almost like the Asian Amazon.com. And so I go on Alibaba and I order all kinds of stuff over there. Like I want to sell key chains on Etsy.com, E-T-S-Y, where you can sell stuff on Etsy. I got these key chains that I bought a key chain and it cost me $34. It was like a crystal and it had the logo of the card engraved inside of the crystal. It cost me $34. When I looked up those key chains on Alibaba, it was $1 per key chain. I'm like, this person is making a crazy return that sold me this key chain through eBay or Etsy. So I invested in 100 of those key chains and set up an Etsy shop. I let my sister run it. Now it didn't sell anything, but it only costs $100. I didn't market it either. And, but you just never know. One day Etsy might put it in the algorithm. Somebody search custom for key chain and then that page comes up and it starts selling like crazy. Just never know when it's gonna happen or how it's gonna happen, but you see people selling on Etsy and eBay that you've never met. Their product just comes up when you search it. And so that's why I'm thinking business and every aspect so that I could be my own boss and so that I could do my own thing and so that I could work from bed so that I could do it the way I want to do it. People say, oh, you're gonna shoot a video. You got to have your camera. You got to have a nice lighting. You got to have your makeup on. You got to be set up. I'm shooting you a video from my bed using Zoom without my camera. I'm in my underwear. Forgive me for, you know, but I'm in bed. I don't have a shirt on and, but I'm doing this the way I want to do it. And I am my own boss working for God, but my own boss and I feel like there's freedom in that. They have to deal with somebody peeing on your head because they're mad with their life. And so they try to make your life miserable. And I believe that we all deserve a shot at that if that's what you want. If that's what you want. If you don't want it, then God bless you. This ain't for you. You must want it, you don't listen this far because you could have been turned it off if you that happy with your corporate job. But I believe, and this is the thing, I was watching this tribe, the Shanti tribe in Ghana and this video was from years ago. And it was just showing how all of these women, they're coming from, they're bringing these plantains, however you would pronounce it. And then some selling other things, they selling different things in the market in Ghana. And they have the queen woman who she's over it. And it's all the women selling. So the women go down, they set a price, people buy from them. And then those people take that product to the market. The men carry, that's how the men get paid by carrying the baskets of product. And it's just this bargaining thing. They'll have hour-long bargaining, 160, 160. I want 160, I want 160. They speaking in their language and I'm reading the translation. And then the people like, no, I paid 170 yesterday and I took a loss. So I can only pay 160 today. Listen, you evil woman, I want 170. You cheating me out of my money. And they will argue for a whole hour and then boom, finally sell on 160. The one woman, she mad, the other lady who younger and feel like she's smarter, she happy. Now she take them plantains down to the market and she's selling them and they hustling and grinding. But look at this, all these different people doing the same thing. And I saw one young lady, she telling the older lady, she was like, listen, we took a loss yesterday. We can't make no money with you selling it at this price. We can't make no money at this price. All buying it at this price, we can't compete. They end the marketplace doing business, entrepreneurship. They're not working no corporate job. Everybody eating off the land. They eating off the land and you go to the market and today you buy from this person. Tomorrow you might buy from the person right beside them selling the same thing. Just because you like this person's smile better today. So I have this utopian vision that if I ghost write, then you can edit and then somebody else does proofreading and then somebody else does formatting and then somebody else does cover design and then somebody else does printing. Then somebody else does shipping. You see what I'm saying? So now that's several businesses and we all need each other, but it's so many people that guess what? We need more ghost writers because if I'm the only ghost writer and we got a million people that wanna write a book, we're gonna need a million ghost writers. So everybody eating, we're gonna need more formatters, more editors, more proofreaders, more printers, more shippers, the UPS, FedEx, what have, and so each of us is a small business and you don't need a lion's share. You just need enough to feed your family. So I don't need to make a billion dollars and guess what? Look at what I do. How many people do what I do? But yet my business earns seven figures. Seven figures means a million dollars or more, but how many people are authors? How many people have a YouTube channel? How many people are speakers? How many people are life coaches? How many people do what I do, but yet they're still a large enough piece of the pie for my family to earn a million dollars or more. And that's the mistake that people make. People think that there isn't enough room and they say, oh, I'm not gonna do this, but what you have to realize, nobody is you. Nobody has my exact same country accent. Nobody is as, nobody is as tactfully transparent as I am. Meaning a lot of people who do what I do have to come on in an outfit with a suit, with a blazer, with glasses on, with a hat on, with shiny shoes. I come on with a t-shirt. And then when I'm not in a t-shirt, I just told you I'm in my drawers with no shirt on. Now, some people, oh, that's TMI. That's too much information, but that's my personality. And that's what separates me from the next man and the next woman. Now, somebody could come and try to copy me and emulate me, but you're gonna be able to tell, oh, this person's faking. This ain't really their personality, they're faking. They're trying to act like Tony Gaskins. They sound and acting like Tony Gaskins. And instead of being themselves. So the fact that, listen, 1,000 people can crochet. Everybody gonna have their own little flair. Everybody gonna have their own little design. But it's so many people that all 1,000 people got a market share. It's a billion people. It's 300 million people in their country in America. So everybody got their own little share of business, but then everybody has more than one gift. So you don't just crochet, you also sew. You also tailor. So now you in three marketplaces. So if you got a small percentage of each market, all three of those add up to provide your living. And so that's what you have to understand. That's what you got to understand. It's time for you to stretch your mind, get out of that scarcity mindset and start taking one step at a time. One step at a time. I have a client who she created just her own hair care. Just got in her kitchen and put some stuff together. She's not a chemist. She started using her hair. It felt good, felt like it was working. She started making more for this friend, that friend, this person, that person, this person, got a logo, got some packaging, got the formula down, got the formula down, then found a manufacturer, started posting it on Instagram or YouTube, showing how to use the product. It kind of went viral, started getting sales, started doing Black Friday, being able to make money on Black Friday, then distributors reached out, hey, we distribute to the stores, got in Target, got in Walmart, natural hair care, natural hair care and started in the kitchen. If you just be willing to start somewhere, just be willing to start somewhere and put one foot in front of the other, it will change your life. It'll change your life. And so that's what I want you to understand. And I'm not doing one-on-one sessions right now and I'll tell you why. Why I'm not doing one-on-one sessions because I'm in a space, I'm in a space of creating. I'm in a space of creating and I'm in a space of creating. So I did a music video for the books of the Bible. I'm in a space of creating. And so here's the thing, with this creating, if I'm on the phone with you for an hour, that hour I could have did this video. Now, if I'm on the phone with you, it's just me and you for an hour. If I do a video, it's gonna be from what I've seen on YouTube on my channel, a minimum of 3,000 people see it. So for every hour I could reach one person or I could reach 3,000 people. And so what you have to do is you have to take this knowledge and you gotta apply it to your situation. You gotta apply it to your situation. And I charge $400 an hour and that is a 90% or more discount on my hourly time. And that's a lot of money. And that's why I'm not doing one-on-ones right now because I don't feel comfortable charging people more than $400 an hour. And some people do it now. The white guys and some black guys, and I don't really see women doing this a lot, but I'm sure there's some out there. But the white guys, and I'm not being racist, I'm just saying he got a different kind of confidence. They do not be caring. They literally, I have reached out to guys who are upstanding citizens. They legitimate people with millions of followers or hundreds of thousand followers, best-selling books or what have you, these people, they don't mind charging you $7,500 for a one-on-one session. One guy said $20 to $30,000 for a one-on-one session. So they just charge their price. And if you wanna pay it, that's out of you. You know, if you got that kind of money, I'm just not there yet. I guess I ain't confident enough. I just don't, I don't feel like it's that much value in the world to be charging that much money. I just, $30,000, I could see that if I get to sit down and talk to Jesus. But to a man, no. To a human, no. $30,000. And so I say that to say, that's what's happening though. So that's why I'm not doing one-on-ones right now. Now I do have a program where it's a year of coaching and it's $7,500 and it's an upfront thing and we work one hour a month. And the reason why I did that is because it's $7,500 and I know that that's a large amount of money but I'm doing 12 hours of coaching for that amount and but and an in-person meeting where you can fly to my city and we do like a four hour workshop on your business and brand. And then if it's during a football season, you also can go to the football game to my suite on that Sunday, the next day. But so it's a lot of value I'm putting in there for $7,500 and that comes down to $625 an hour. But that's no it don't because I forgot the four hour session. So $468 an hour. So that's peanuts compared to my earning and compared to my business size and my brand size and compared to what people on my brand level are charging. But I do that because I know $7,500 in my demographic that let me know this person is extremely serious and this person has done enough work to get to a financial place to where I'm not digging them out the mud, they already got a foundation. They already understand discipline, sacrifice, stewardship because they have set access to $7,500. And so it's things that go into that as well because coaching is really, is not for when you down, trodden and depressed. That's what therapy is for. And then therapy help you get your footing, counseling therapy, help you get your footing, help you kind of get up, stand up. And then once you get a little wind under your then that's when you go to coaching. And that's when it tap into your purpose and your business, therapists are not business coaches. They're not giving you a business plan. That's what a coach is doing, a consultant is doing. So I want you to understand the difference. And cause a lot of times when I do videos like this a lot of people be reaching out with Tony, can you work with me? Tony, can you work with me? And then when I tell you people just being from the demographic that we from, we don't understand how business works because we don't come from that. We weren't giving that in this demographic. And so we don't realize if I say it's $400 an hour people fall out of their seat and don't realize that it's white men who on my same level of success or less charging $10,000 an hour. But because of we come from a different demographic we just can't imagine paying that much money for our self-investment on average because a lot of us come from poverty. A lot of us come from brokenness. A lot of us come from no self-investment. We come from buying Jordans and Tommy Hill figure and these different fashion brands to buy self-worth instead of building our net worth. We buy things losing our money to feel special. But then we turn our nose up at a course for sale or a consultation price or a coaching session price. And that is another reason why we remain in poverty and why other races who take and they invest other demographics, because it's some people of different races in my demographic that may come from the same scarcity mindset, although being from a different race or nationality, but it's other people of a different mindset, the mindset that we growing to, the mindset we getting to that they take and they make those investments. And that's what I had to do. That's honestly what set me free. When I start, when I stop investing in material things to make me look successful, instead of investing in me and my products and my business and my knowledge to actually become successful. So that then I could afford material possessions out of my profits, not out of my necessities, not out of the money I need to live. I could spend extra money, play money, profit on nice clothes of a higher caliber or designer brand or nicer car because I had made the investment into my knowledge and into my business. And that's the difference. And you have to be able to make that shift. And when you make that mindset shift to where your investment is a true investment and not just flushing your money down the toilet. An investment means you're earning. You have a return on investment. If you're not investing, if you're just spending then that's not an investment. You're basically giving your money away. So let me see the, watching the news about what we got going on in the world right now in Russia and Ukraine. So I say that to say, hopefully this give you some inspiration and you can get started. Like I say, it is some sharks out there. So when you go on Upwork, U-P-W-O-R-K dot com or you go on Fiverr, I personally like Fiverr because the workers are cheaper and it just less, Upwork is more like the designer brand of freelancers and Fiverr is more like your target. So I like Fiverr because it's all different levels. And then it's easier to just see what they've done because they have the portfolios on there, they got the star rating, they got all the different metrics that you can look and see. So I personally utilize Fiverr. And then if I have a tougher project, a project that just a little more intense, Upwork tends to have better talent. Like I did a shoe design for a client and I got the shoe designed for $1,200. And then I got on Alibaba and got a prototype of the shoe, a sample of the shoe for $1,500. And it came with two samples, two different colorways. So basically it was like $750 per sample. And so I got that on Upwork. Could I have got a shoe design the proper way for the manufacturer to use the file on Fiverr maybe, but I didn't even check because I just assumed it was more of a complex job. So I found somebody on Upwork to do that. And so that's the level. Like my client now who's a professional basketball player could literally have his own shoe line off of a 1,700, not 1,700, $2,700 investment. He could have, that's the genesis of his own shoe line that could earn him millions of dollars. So a lot of times, this is what we're not realizing is when you're scrolling on Instagram and you see that brand that's selling them T-shirts and them pants, a lot of them brands, like for example, I found a brand, the T-shirt costs like $30 or $50. I guarantee you that shirt is coming from China. And it's $5 to $7 a shirt. They just found the right composition, the right material, and got it designed, had a sketch artist, a fashion designer, just draw up the sketch. And then the manufacturer is just putting that into the machine and printing it out basically, you know, like I was stitching it out and I guarantee you the majority of the money that the company is spending is in social media marketing, but they selling these shirts for $35. And I know they're not paying $10 a shirt. They're paying $5, maybe paying $3, could even be paying one or $2 a shirt because they might be producing 1,000 units. And we take, and I spend $200 a pop, every time I go to the site, I probably spent $500 to $1,000 on the site for $50 to $100 worth of material. That's the profit margin. So when I had my T-shirts, now I'm on TonyGaskinStore.com, but when I had TonyGaskinShop.com, I was selling the shirts for $20 a shirt, but the shirt cost me $6 a shirt. So I'm making $14 a shirt. So that's more than double my investment. And $20 is the standard price, the standard price. Now I could get that shirt down to $3 a shirt, down to $2 a shirt if I do larger quantity. So look at that profit margin. So what I want you to understand is that business is not as hard as people make it. That business is a thing because it's just really for the people who gonna go and get it. It's for the people who gonna do the research. It's for the people who gonna go get the knowledge. Like it's people, it's white families that's moving dirt in their millionaires and they're moving dirt. They are moving dirt. I know these families. They picking up boo-boo out the sewers and moving it, going to a wasteland in their millionaires, 24,000 square foot homes. They found a way to get grocery. They went to where the produce comes from. My partner's grandfather started a grocery store. And do you know what grocery store that is? If you come to the Southeast, Publix, Publix Supermarkets. I went to school with the grandson and we are close friends, very close friends and we are business partners. If you know how expensive publish is, you know how nice publish is, you know they are a Fortune 100 company. It was started by one man with a vision. George Jenkins who had the guts to go and say, where is this produce coming from? Where is these groceries coming from? Cause he worked at Pigley Wigley's and he in there working, working his finger to the bone. And he said, who is this started Pigley Wigley? Is this guy smarter than me or this woman smarter than me? Absolutely not. Where is produce coming from? Where are these groceries coming from? He went to the plug. It's the same thing that we did as black men and Italian men and Hispanic men and Asian men. It's the same thing we did in the drugs, in the drugs. We went to the plug. Where is this stuff coming from? Columbia, okay, I'm flying to Columbia. And then I'm getting with this white man who got his own plane because the whites took over America. So now the black man get with the white man to use his plane and get him a cut. And then the black man eventually buy him a plane or the Italian man or the Hispanic man. And so you see how this, and I'm speaking like this just because this is the real differences between how different races did stuff and based on your space in America. So you can't be racially sensitive. You gotta look at this. And of course there's exceptions to the rules and generalizing, but this is what happened. And so it's really, your mindset doesn't have to be based on your nationality. Your mindset don't have to be based on your color. If you got some negative things about your race so your nationality, you could break those things. You could break those things and it's like to send them in some pictures of these shoes and I literally think my wife got all of them already. Sending me these Chanel shoes. That is so interesting. But that made me feel so good as a husband. That the ones that she would wear, she already got. Look at God. That made me feel good as a husband. That she taken care of. And this lady grinding, cause she is from this lady, this shopper that's texting me right now. She from the Ukraine. And her country is going through a lot and she sending these photos to get her sales off. She grinding. Look at that mentality. She not sitting and soaking. She say, I got to grind now. So listen to him. I'ma go ahead and get going. I done talk your head off. Please forgive me, especially with no video. I know it's hard to listen, but this'll be kind of like a little podcast, I guess. So listen, get started. Get started, get going. Get going. And if you just really, if you incorporate and you incorporate six figures and you ready to build your brand, make the transition. And you just say, I'm so systematic and so corporate. I don't have a clue what to do. And you want to join my one year program, then you could do that. That's not the purpose of this video to sell that. Please don't think that. Do not think I done did all this talking to sell that, but it just at the same time, although I still try my best to be accessible, but I just have to be at a different price point so that I'm not overburdened so that it's not the mask. Because a lot of times people, they'll put $400 on a credit card and just waste my time on that call and don't even really be wanting nothing. And I just, oh Lord, him has given a 90% discount and still wasting my time. This person ain't want nothing. Some people just waste $400 just to talk in circles. And so that's why I'm trying to get away from it. And no offense, me being blunt, being real with you. No offense to that. But it's still, I know sometimes if you're trying to build something, you're trying to build something big and you just kind of need outside of pain almost like a board member. That's what I use my consulting for, just to be another voice, another sounding board outside mind helping you think of marketing, strategy, product and coming to market. And so you're gonna see my new website I'm doing. You know, my mentor.life. You know, TonyGassesAcademy.com. You know, GaskinsUniversity.com. You know, CharacterUniversity.com. But you're gonna see my app coming. You're gonna see the cards, the card game coming. It's gonna be multiple apps. You're gonna see the new website coming. So you're gonna see all the different things I'm producing and bringing to market. And you get the idea that I don't just be talking. I really do this because I'd have been full-time entrepreneur now for over a decade. And I turn 38 next Tuesday. So I really been at this. So hey, God bless you. I look forward to talking to you some more and working with you soon. Take care.