Adrienne Bailon on Her Biggest Money Mistakes, Wins and Everything In Between | Money Maker Podcast

[Music] so Adrian byon I love even pronouncing it the way we pronounce long and that it right I love it love it love it which also reminds me of bad and dance right it's such a great sing my sing my name like bamos like theia songs but B and I was like yes you get it and for the English speaking people that can never pronounce my last name when I would go on shows or even now baon they would say Balon and I would tell them you buy it you loan it buy loan literally which actually fits into this whole money maker situation but you buy it you loan it I love it I love it but it's such a beautiful name it is such a beautiful name you are someone to admire you've done so much we all love you we all watch The Cheetah Girls you're a singer you're an actress you're a host you I mean you you've been a first in so many ways so we're going to start with a little lightning rout just so people get to know you I love this I want to ask you in three words how would you describe your personal brand I would describe it as relatable fun and aspirational I love that I would say relatable because I think that you know with humble upbringing I think that there's so many people that can relate to how I grew up my story my situation but at the same time I don't take myself very seriously so I like to keep it fun and then I would say aspirational because I think I have been able to do so many really cool things but that I hope that it's always an inspiration that people feel like okay I can Inspire if she could do it I could do it she came from the projects in New York City and the Lower East Side and if she can do it and have the things and live the life that she's living then there's a chance that I could too so you've done so many things that what would you say is the hardest job you've ever had hardest job I've ever had honestly was being on the reel for almost 10 years while it was so much fun and probably one of the best jobs I've ever had I had the greatest time doing it there a talk show it's so great yes but like you don't realize how much of your s you have to give on a show like that and it's actually what I loved most about our show that I think really separated us from the other talk shows was the fact that one that we were women of color but I was going to say it's the only time you saw women of color talking from that vantage point and I think also that it wasn't just like a gossip show we would use the headlines to really talk about our own personal Liv so if it was like okay so we heard in the news that this person is currently fighting with their ex spouse because they had a prenup and then they'd be like well ladies do we believe in prenups and now looking back there's so many things I said because I started the show at 29 years old and finished it at almost 39 so that's almost a decade of my life and I feel like I changed so much so throughout those years and some of the moments are cringey I'm like bet on nna why did you have to say that I'm like y Santo what was I thinking um and then there's other moments that I was really vulnerable and just honest and open and those kind of conversations just can be really hard okay another quick question is there one thing on on your bucket list that you really want to do and you haven't done I still would love to do like a papatong album wow that would be like my Ultimate Dream would be like like a Spanish album that's just like salsa mixed withon mixed with pop music that would be my dream and a little R&B so who your favorite artist in that space right now on I'm a big Rosalia fan I love obviously bad bunny I love um Becky G I think is awesome I just think all those girls are just killing it Carol G like I just am a huge fan Nati Natasha like I love that music so just to be able to do something fun well you're going to have to do it now I I know fingers crossed that would be my Ultimate Dream okay so in a successful person's life there's high in lows what would you say is one of your biggest lows biggest low would be the fact that I had a solo record deal at Def Jam and I never put out a solo album that it like never came to to fruition I think it was half a timing thing I also have a lot of faith in God and I do believe that like his timing is perfect and I think that things go exactly the way they're supposed to but I was definitely disappointed when La Reed signed me to De jam and then like I never ended up putting out a solo album I also was in a relationship I had fallen in love and I was like not quite focused as I would have liked to have been and I regret that wow yeah what is the best investment you've made in yourself that's really paid off best investment I've made in myself would be starting my own businesses I think there's nothing smarter than actually investing your money in yourself and then the second would be real estate real estate changed my life as someone who had such terrible credit that I had to have my sister co-signed for me when I moved into The Palazo across from the Grove when I first got the Reel I was like I have the money and they were like yeah but you have terrible credit and I literally had to have my sister who was a nurse at the time like steady normal job she had great credit I was like the Superstar on Instagram looking all luxurious and I could not get the apartment so real estate for me has changed the game and having great credit obviously you know it's funny because I say to women don't buy shoes by buildings and you know when all of us watch sex in the city and Carrie couldn't pay for the apartment cuz she had so many shoes yes I think that's a big lesson for all of us right absolutely I mean there's so much to learn there I think even the fact that I started a you know a luxury vegan bag line that has saved me so much money because I'm like you know Vu I'm like my own company I'm gonna walk around with my bags like why would I like and I think it's sounds silly but there's certain things that really have changed the way I think and the way I live and it has really helped me in a major way on a financial level so let's go back in time now to the beginning yes I was just blown away that you were like this girl singing in a choir and singing and then someone very famous kind of gave your first break and you talk about it yeah I grew up in church I grew up singing in a church choir in the lower e Side in New York City I grew up ASA de which is like Assemblies of God super Pentecostal old school and um there actually was a conference a Christian conference going on at Madison Square Garden the same week that Ricky Martin was going to be doing his tour the next stop on his tour was going to be MSG and we were there the night before and I guess someone from his team was there in Madison sard and the before and we came out and sang at this conference this Christian Conference my church and they saw the choir and they were like oh my gosh for this show we should have a choir obviously our choir at the time was the mass choir from our church it had like maybe 150 people and they're like we want to do an ensemble version of that which maybe had like 30 and they pretty much called my choir director and was like kako shout out to kman and they were like come have them audition and we'll pick the best 30 of those voices and they're going to perform on the last song of the concert which was W do you remember oh I love okay so literally I was 14 years old I was the youngest in the choir and the shortest of course I'm still 411 hello wasn't much taller then I just remember him handpicking as he was sitting in on the vocal rehearsals and they had us come in and sing the chorus of the song and they were like yes thank you so much no yes they super sweet and I ended up getting picked and I was the first one to walk out on the stage because I was the shortest so I was in the front and they had us walk in and file in like right left and I just saw this sea of funny enough money green little lights going off and it was because hinin was the sponsor for the tour and they had these little buttons that everyone was wearing with a little light and it would looked like a sea of just green glistening lights and I remember walking out there and being like God like if I could ever get the opportunity to do this and like this be my career path oh my gosh what a blessing that would be and that's really what got my career started I really was like oh I want to be a singer now and then how it actually all came together is a bizarre weird story but yeah you really have had this very complex music life because you've been in girl bands and then you did your own and then you did the Cheetah Girls and then you you you got taken in by Disney and you did all this you know kind of musical movies you know when we as as outsiders look at that we go wow this girl's doing all this get rich whatever but we know the music industry is very complex so can you give us kind of the Viewpoint of that journey and everything you learn good bad and indifferent okay where do we start so here's the thing you do not make money from having a record deal especially if you go through a production company so I actually personally never had a record deal I had a production company that had a direct deal with Sony epic and when they got the advance for for us to get signed they received that money and they used that money to make the album and then recouping is an entire different conversation which pretty much means that any money you spend from the money they gave you you have to make back before you actually see any money and get to earn anything which never happens never happens well it's just like the movie and the TV business so you go in there as an artist so you're so happy be F and you realize PL the money is very difficult it is very difficult and it does not come from actually ever making an album or even selling albums you will only make money in the music industry two ways one being a songwriter because you'll make money from your publishing deals and from the fact that every time your song plays on the radio and that kind of stuff you get money so writing producing and then touring right that's why when we we don't understand this as comment people when you see people that are like 80 years old still touring as a legacy man right it's because you have to make money yes you got to pay your bills like you got to you have to make money and that I think that people also don't understand that the more money you spend the more money you have to make and there's a certain lifestyle that people have to upkeep so although somebody can say I'm going to hand you let's even say a million dollars which no one is getting a million dollars you're lucky if you get a $50,000 advance in today's day and age because you really don't need record labels at this point you can go to Consumer with all the streaming services that you now have so even if you got a million dollars that may sound like a lot of money to someone but these people live luxury lives and that million dollars is going to run out quickly you have to buy clothes and buy hair and make your nails done you got you have to look like something absolutely and it costs money you're going to places and you have to take a car yes there's a certain upkeep in an image that you have to uphold and that costs money unless you're smart which in this case I feel like I did a pretty good job at faking it till I made it in the sense of anytime I ever got my hair and makeup done by a hair stylist or a makeup artist I would pay such close attention and I would practice on myself because I knew the reality it is that at 14 15 16 years old and really not making any money I couldn't look like the superstar that I truly wanted to be and I had to figure it out on my own oh so you figured out how to do it yourself so I would do my own hair I would do my own makeup I would style myself I would and know you're not supposed to say this see I'm too honest buy and return clothes like no that's the reality of really trying to create this image of like okay yes I'm successful and I've got Superstar quality and I've got this thing going on but it was really hard in the beginning I did not have money and crazier is that the transition from my first group 3 LW to Disney I made even less money because the reality is that Disney channel is a huge opportunity for so many young people that at this point to some extent it's like yeah I should be paying us for the opportunity because it really does set people's careers up it makes them explode onto the scene it was tough because I think people thought like oh we were making so much more money than we actually were well you know we hear a lot about like the Mickey Mouse club and the Disney movies and all and that they're makers of of your career but again I think that going back to our show Money Maker right and we're trying to get to that place it doesn't happen as quickly as people think you know how many years would you say it took you from that beginning era to feeling a little more masterful and feeling like okay now I know the business now I know the money the legal we haven't even talked about the legal yeah I'm grateful that I had parents that had good Hearts but it s saddens me that I had parents that didn't have the knowledge that we have today back then I had a mom who literally was petrified of the idea of me turning 18 and getting credit cards solicited to me at the house and she'd be like do not my mom would be like I and you're like you cannot use credit cards and so because of that I really did struggle with having credit because I was so afraid of ever having a credit card I didn't understand how that sort of worked so there was that but I'm grateful I didn't have a mom that used me for money wow yeah I'm grateful that I had a mom that literally just retired a year and a half ago she worked throughout my entire career my mom worked in a hospital at Cornell in New York and people would come in and be like I know you you're Adrien Bon's mom they'd be like why are you still working and she'd be like because my daughter's money is not my money yeah it's very Latin know we have good parents but they didn't really get the financial system of the United States 100% And they didn't have the knowledge at all it was very cash mentality and so I'm grateful though that she worked and she helped me save my money so while I had money there was a lot of things that I didn't know about what I could do with my money and how I could invest my money how I could double my money how I could triple my money I think there was also a lot of fear based in our community I think that as Latinos were scared of I would ask my mom mom someone's giving you money and she'd be nervous I'm like Mom that's a good like that's a good thing but it actually would make her anxious at the idea of receiving for me even till this day if I want to give my mother something luxury expensive it like makes her anxious and nervous and I'm like we got to get over this but with that being said I think for a really long period of time she didn't know what I should do with my money and furthermore I think yet my other friends were like scared money don't make no money like it was very like I get it you know it is like a really weird you have to that's why you know I say it is about the psychology of money yes and our psychology sometimes growing up is is off it's fear based I think a we don't get it and so it takes us a while so when you were doing all this you know these movies and all that and then the real talk show comes along is that the first time you really had like a steady salary yeah because I think people don't realize that I did 3lw started when I was 15 years old I I auditioned when I was 14 and we actually came out with our first album when I was 15 I didn't do the Cheetah Girls until I was 18 so that was 3 years later and then even with the Cheetah Girls I did it from 18 to almost 23 19 20 21 22 Yeah like five or five years we did the Cheetah Girls and that was pretty consistent because we were touring and that allowed me to see some pretty good money came from the touring side and but definitely the 10 years that I was on the Reel that's when I actually understood how much I was getting paid when I got paid I got paid on a weekly basis I understood everything about how much I was making and what I could do with the money I was making I also wanted to be smart in those almost 10 years of being like okay I've got this money how can I invest that I became a homeowner how did that all come up like how did you start is it that you had mentorship is it that you like how did the money Gene the mission and money now we have to deal with the money because we you know you realize without the money there's no mission right so how did you that click in your head or did you have help I had help it's two different people that I think have had the biggest impact on my financial stability at this point in my life one was the fact that I had that embarrassing moment at my apartment building when I first moved to LA I was living in New York for a really long time now I'm moving to LA and Warner Brothers at first was paying for the apartment for me but now that we got the show they were like okay find your own apartment get your own place and now I had to go to the leasing office and I remember being so mortified because the girl at the leasing office recognized me And yet when they ran my credit I was denied the apartment and I was like how is this possible and that's where we got into recognizing that my credit score was terrible from the dumbest thing when I tell you one I didn't have enough of a credit line and two I in New York had moved out of an apartment and never returned a cable box don't get me started okay it is the dumbest thing Believe get the book out of the library that will have you so messed up you won't even you'll be like wait what what is it that has my credit so bad I had a cable box and I guess when you move out of an apartment you can't just leave the cable box in the corner attached to the wall like you have to return the cable box and because of that that to me was such an aha moment listen embarrassment for me is the worst thing my husband always smiles he's like Adrian can handle anything except for embarrassment I'll go into a store and if I even think you think I'm not going to buy something I'mma buy it just so I don't feel embarrassed it's actually quite terrible and I got to get over these things but for me that moment was my aha moment to say girl you don't know what is going on in your financial World you've got to pull it together so like you got to grow up it was like that moment that moment had I had a whole conversation with my mom at that moment and I had the person that's now my best friend and now my manager her name is Lana hawat she actually started as a fan of mine and came on as an intern funny enough she actually worked for a mortgage company and she was in finance a fan it's actually a bizarre story it's a great story a fan of mine was working out of an office in a mortgage company like she literally would tell you if you're going to get if you're going to get the loan or not and she came on to work with me as an intern but still working out of the cubicle in her job but at the same time answering emails for me she I remember as a fan being shocked at how financially disorganized I was but see these are great moments because you you have to like you have an aha about how little we know about these things yes and she I remember her sitting me down and just being like okay let's try to get this together what's going on with this let's put a budget together and I was like budget a budget yes I know this word and I probably should be better at this and she was the first person ever in my life who actually sat me down and said I'm a huge fan of yours and I love you too much and I I did not think that this is what your world looked like let me help you pull it together and she went from intern to my assistant to executive assistant to Brand man manager to now she is my entire manager and prettyy much runs my whole life but she's also my best friend and I'm grateful for her but I feel like her and my husband played a huge role in me just having financial literacy in general so coming up with a budget what that looked like originally it was super basic and simple I had a notepad and I was like okay what is my rent my rent is this what are the things that are necessary that I have to pay for every month how much money do I have to bring in a month just to survive that was the first question I had to ask very important question and it seems so like duh like you should know this but I did not know what that number was I didn't know what I was overspending on holy crap when I thought about all the things I spent money on that was so stupid when we looked at like what I was pulling how I was overdrawn most of the time and getting money taken out of my account because I was overdrawn I wasn't checking I didn't have the apps on my phone to check my back account guys it's really bad you can only imagine if that that's when you figured it out how much money was lost before that oh so it was terrible and how many people do we know that are in the entertainment business that everybody thinks they're rich and then you find out they're bankrupt exactly you know or or or athletes 100% the amount of money that comes in but it doesn't matter cuz it's not about the money that comes in right it's what you keep it's what you keep and I think I had no idea how much I was spending on whether it was luxury items handbags purses shoes uh clothing that I couldn't even tell you where it was I couldn't even pinpoint it in my closet some of the things I had lost along I'm like where is that those pair of shoes did I leave them in a hotel like it was tragic but all that to say that was my moment and I was like I'm going to get it together and I'm never looking back so question for you I don't know at which point of all this you were on the Kardashians yeah so did you learn a lot from them in terms of I did how they monetize like how they they went like timing right place right time we don't get the inside sco the Kardashians like you did what do you think is is what they know that that the rest of us don't 100% get brilliant they are so brilliant in so many different ways I think one of the major things I feel like I learned from Chris was also striking while the iron's hot they are really hard workers I don't think people recognize how much work it takes to do a show like the show that they do and at the time when they were on E this was literally filming from like 7:00 in the morning until 11:00 at night like they were on camera all day long like it was a hard work schedule but with that being said I think a lot of people look at them and go oh my God but they're privileged that's why they have these opportunities yet we know tons of rich kids that don't work because they're privileged and I actually think it's the complete opposite in their case they didn't have to work very hard but they choose to and I think that that was like the huge double and triple whammy was having someone where Kim will tell you yes I had these great opportunities but I didn't just let them fall by the wayside I went hard one of the things I learned was working extremely hard taking opportunities but even simple things like I remember going with Kim to nightclub appearances I didn't know you could get paid to go to clubs like I didn't even know about that at that time and I remember appearances was a really big way of how they started making their money it was like how can I use what I have to bring money in to then use that money to support the image that I'm upkeeping so let's say I create this smok and mirror's image of I'm this hot girl I'm going to go do these club events look like the hot girl and use that money to then buy the next hottest clothes buy the and they actually did it in a smart way there's also five girls where like we you wear each other's clothes we like it's like five wardrobes to work with but I think they're so smart in the way that they're always thinking ahead and they're always thinking in a very business-like way and I think that's incredible so for for people like us you know we're love to you know and we didn't grow up in in this world of Hollywood or whatever so to see people think very big to see people kind of be aspirational as you said to see people also think about constantly how to monetize everything did which is not how we were raised right yeah so is learning from all the it was like going to school right all these different experiences and all these different people from different places is this when you decided to start in this kind of era I'm going to try to get my own lines of like how did you turn all of this into a parallel track of businesses the biggest thing I noticed was once you recognize what your audience and the people that love you what they're interested in about you so I think even the Kardashians definitely played in that in that sense as well of being like okay what is it they like they think our hair and makeup is great let's come out with hair and make like that is so smart and here I was on this show called the real how I launched my first company which was xxi my jewelry company was because I actually was wearing these pieces that I had on all the time it actually was from hoyi aepe on Delany Street in New York but and they were pieces that my grandmother had bought me and and at the time stuff that we've worn for years gold pendants with like a saint on it very Latino kind very Latino jewelry was now being sold at Neiman Marcus for ridiculous amounts of money and it was very shic and hip at the time it was called pendant jewelry it was practically like rosaries and Saint pendants what we grew up with literally everything we grew up with and one of my girlfriends one time saw me wearing them and she's like oh my God Barney right and I was like no actually this was my grandmother's and she gave it to me and so forth and so on and in that moment I was always getting comments on my Instagram saying oh my God I love your earrings old school bamboo earrings like door knockers and things like that and I was like I should come out with the jewelry like there is nothing that Latina like more than jewelry like I said I I was born and and before I could leave the hospital I had my ears pierced I had an anklet I had two ID bracelets and a necklace please I was like this is in my blood this is who I am and I started designing jewelry and that's how xxi got started and I literally started by recreating those pendants that I loved and it was my first collection and we called it faith and Familia and it was literally replicas I had them remake all my signature pieces that I wear all the time and they remade them so that my fans could wear them as well wow so see connecting the dots like oh I'm literally wearing the exact same necklace that Adrian wears every day and now I'm on this show 5 days a week where every day they're asking what earrings does she have on what necklace does she have on what and I'm like oh I should pay attention to that let's create the things that I want to wear and that now it's accessible to my fans again it's not crazy priced I wanted it to be something that was realistic or for you have to know your audience but from there how did you learn like the back of the house how did you learn the business card you did go let's keep it real like I didn't have some Guru that I was going to it's called late night hard work coffee and sitting and Googling everything that you could imagine at the time there was a partnership somebody had approached me and was like do you want to do I the first entrepreneurial thing that I ever did was trying to have a nail polish line and I actually went and like Googled like nail polish like where I could manufacture at the time I was in New York it was placed in Amityville whatever I did that first and that company actually literally it was me my mom and my dad would ship out like the shipments are sell from my mom's garage all that to say I ended up closing down that company and the connections that you can make it's so weird from there a company approached me about doing a subscription box of nail polish and at the time I was like uh not really into nail polishes anymore gel had just come out it was a whole thing I was like eh whole new line whole new line I was like I'm not really going to do the nail polish anymore that same company also had a division that created jewelry and I was like not interested in the nail polish line but now that I had this idea I went back and reached out to them and was like I'm thinking of starting jewelry is that something you'd be interested on collabing with me on and like partnering up with me because I had no clue who's going to make this jewelry what am I going to be sitting in my kitchen melting down you know gold like how does this work I had no idea and so here's the thing the same way that I took everything I could learn from a makeup artist I did the same thing in this partnership in this partnership I asked all the questions I said okay where do we manufacture okay sometimes in Mexico sometimes in China understood who's manufact who creates the cads which are literally you know like I literally started asking all the questions and it's because of my pretty much the mentorship program that I had for my jewelry line that I was able to then launch my bag line I was able to figure out going online let me ask you a question because where a lot of people go wrong yeah building a business is you go and you say okay how can I make this jewelry can I make it in China can I make it here can I but then you you buy the the stuff and then you sit on it and you might have too much inventory do not buy a lot of inventory you need to figure out how start small and not only should you start small but also make sure that whatever you paid wholesale for those pieces that you're absolutely going to make at least three times that amount when you price it so even start thinking about the quality and the reality is I started looking at the pieces and recognizing okay where do I buy little cute jewelry Forever 21 fashion novas of the world like that's just the reality of not just who I am but who my consumer is we buy little things it's trendy today big hoop earrings tomorrow this is not something I'm intending to have 20 years from now so you have to recognize that when I even was making it at first I was like I want incredible quality and that was making the cost of my product really high which then meant okay if I am spending $122 to make this three times that amount is $36 do I want to charge $36 for just a pair of Hoops when somebody can go somewhere else and get them for 15 no I want to get my cost down so I really started thinking in this I was micromanaging everything you having like almost like you went from not knowing anything to knowing it all and doing it alled about it yes and thank God because that's where we all have to go I mean I love hearing this abely but I literally would sit up at night and I feel like now all of this information is available online you literally can go on like a Alibaba and find out who the manufacturers of the like who does this who does that what's the quantity a great error for all of this if you want to do something at this point in time in 2023 there is no excuse everything is available and at your fingertips on the internet if you really really want to find information there are podcasts like this one there are YouTubes that like literally you can go on there and be like how do I start a business how do I trademark my my company's name like for that is so important please do not put out any products without trademarking your company's name thank you for saying that that's true yes like like there's simple steps that I didn't recognize I had to take and then I realized oh my gosh if you really want to know something there is so much that you can learn like there is absolutely no excuse but to be fair you had an incredible platform cuz you were on T and that's where the Kardashians have done really well that you've used the platform as a commercial for your brand I guess young women could say they could be influencers and they can they can create that kind of following but even in your community you could be popular in your church you could be popular in high school you can if right now you're in your high school and let's say people think you have cool style why are you not sharing that information why aren't you literally out of your locker selling cool things like I just saw recently one of my girlfriends had this really cool um pendant that was off of her phone like these like little things that charm bracelets that they're almost hang off of your cell phones now and she she was saying her daughter started making them and she's selling them out of her locker and I'm like come on young entrepreneur this is what I like to hear but she's literally making something with her hands selling it at work it's trendy it's cute it's cool and it's the simple things like that that you can start from the smallest thing and really turn it into something so much bigger that's why I look at all these young people and I go what's your excuse because there's so much to do right now and it is the easiest time in history to do all this okay so tell me about the bags how how did that okay so now we're like oh we get it like I get how this works we joined Shopify don't get me started I love me some Shopify I think it's the most genius way to be able to sell stuff e-commerce is brilliant so you learned all that too I learned all that the first thing I do when I have an idea of something I want to start like I think the next thing I'm going to go into is I really want to start a Candle Company I've never said this anywhere I'm like candles are hot and it's like they're they don't cost that much and people want candles desperately do you know why I want to start a Candle Company because the amount of Theo that I spend on candles it is so out of control that I'm like I would just be saving myself money by starting a candle company and I was like this is something that again quick turnaround it's something people burn they need new they're going to come back they'll need more of it I feel like for such a long period of time one of the things that my audience has loved is kind of having a look into my home and it's like oh my home fragrance and how does that work you smell so good you're good into the fragrance thing girl so it's those kinds of things that I start thinking about it I'm like the first thing I do is get the Instagram account so I started an Instagram account for my home called chatau Hoten and so I started that Instagram it like literally so many people started following it and I was like okay like how can I now I get it you like looking to see what throw I have on my sofa what candle I'm how can I turn so like this is how can I how can I do this and make money on this but I'm doing this right now like literally right now I went online started looking at Candle manufacture facturers where can I go to get something that again will be cost effective so this is me currently I don't know a darn thing about candles right now but I'm just getting started and I'm doing the research I'm figuring it out little by little but it's things like that like how can I use what I know people love or are interested in about me to turn into something that you know I can pass down to my son your story is so beautiful because you're an artist and you start out in this whole other thing but you've evolved into this incredible entrepreneur thank you and that and thank you for sharing it so step by step because I want people to feel like exactly what you said that if you can do it and I don't know everything you guys like on like just being completely honest I'm every day learning something new like right now with my jewelry company we're getting ready to like figure out a new way to of marketing in the sense of ugc is huge right now if you have a company sending things out to influencers and being like hey now can you imagine it's literally me on my phone finding young girls that I'm like ah she bought something she posted it now I'm going to start sending her stuff for free and that she'll do that in a partnership with me as an ambassador for my company like it's the smallest tradeoffs but you get so much lever like it's you don't even realize how much promotion you get from the simplest things like that so again I'm learning every day wow and I'm doing it on my own if I'm being honest a lot of people would think like oh there's somebody handling that no if you get a message from my jewelry company saying hey we'd love to do a partnership we'd love to collab I'm going to send you these items we'd really appreciate if you post it it is me sitting there in the we hours while my son is asleep on my chest getting it done doing the work like no one is going to care about your company as much as you do no one is going I literally used to joke I'm like you have to manage your managers agent your agents assist your assistants no one is going to care more than you in this world that no one's going to work harder than you and and you just have to accept that if you want to be an entreprene rur and on top of that you have like four step kids listen a new baby yeah do you think getting married and having your child also has even because I think having a child makes you even make more money yeah I think you want to leave a legacy I think and you want I've had this conversation with my sister who has two daughters and she had kids before me and she's married to a very successful lawyer he made partner like the youngest to make partner he's like born in Trinidad and Tobago raised in the Bronx and went to Yale and then like Duke GL my sister's a nurse they live a beautiful life their kids are homeschooled they live on like this 22 acre you know incredible estate and we constantly talk about how do we impart in them the drive and the want to work and win and be successful that we had growing up with nothing and it's scary it's scary it is it is so I think all the time my son is never going to go through the hardship that I went through but what is it that I can instill in him that's going to make him want to have the drive and the desire to work as hard as I did because my desire honestly came from the fact of not having it came from this desire of wanting to I saw this quote the other day saying immigrant children that you now may see on Instagram showing their luxury life and showing off the things they have sometimes it's not about them just wanting to show off it's about them celebrating the win that they're having that their parents didn't get to have and that hit me so hard I was like sometimes I want to show that I have something not because I'm trying to be like oh look at me but to be like yo we could do this could do this and for me specifically as a Latina on Instagram when I try to show the luxury things I have from my airs blanket to Versace boots it's important for me to tag those Brands and for my audience to see that they get to see someone that looks like me enjoy luxury as well yes and that that's so important I remember growing up living in the projects and watching shows like MTV Cribs and life of the Rich and Famous and it didn't make me go H I can't stand those people they're rich it made me go how can I be one of those people while there's something outside of these four walls of this project building and this little neighborhood there is something else for me out there and instead of I think it's easy to be je I've been jealous before I've been sitting there one time in my house and been like why don't I have this or what right we can do that and that's easy to do or you can say wow I'm inspired by this and I'm whatever it is that feeling that I have while looking at what somebody else has how can I redirect that energy and put that towards putting a plan together and taking action so that I can have the things that I want and for me it's just important to represent that I think a lot of the times we see one look for who brands have endorsing their stuff or who gets invited to those Valentino dinners and the AES and the Dior cruises and it's important that I show the luxury things that I have so that my audience and my community recognizes that we deserve to enjoy that luxury as well I agree I mean thank you for saying that I think that for for our community we have to promote wealth building yes and wealth in a family and family Legacy and at the same time keep our kids hungry and also say to them uh live beneath your means and invest the money and then when you can then you have these great things so it's a combination of both or the fact that the people that have the most money are never the flashiest that's right with a white T-shirt on walking around nothing that says name brands on it and and just reminding ourselves as that as of that as well that it's okay to be where you're at and to be in the hustle and maybe not have all the flashy things today so that you can have them tenfold tomorrow okay I can talk to you for three hours straight because you're I'm I'm so impressed by your journey and thank you for sharing that Journey but I want to ask you how do you juggle do you see this entrepreneurial life like you're now at e which congratulations what a great to see you at e is beautiful thank do you feel like your artistic life is one track and your entrepreneur track is another or do you see it all as one thing have you merged them all I see it all as one thing but they work very differently and I recognize that as well but I I think okay you've got e newss which again I think about even the fact that I'm on that show and I'm very intentional about being fashion forward on the show and even there with Je one of my chief correspondents I walk into any show that I'm in and I gift all my co-hosts all of my jewelry so that that's what they're wearing every day on the shows I try to think in this way so right now uh e shoots on the same stage as extra and accs as Hollywood so I literally have all the girls in there are wearing all the jewelry but I think so they do sort of cross promote and everything ultimately ends of being one thing but they work in different ways and it is it is hard to juggle it all but But ultimately I think of the fact that I've been giving this great opportunity and I never ever ever want to take it for granted yeah I I get the vibe that you're just very grateful for everything in your life and you try to take advantage of every moment Absolut and I think it is very different than the way we grew up so I think you have also been able to witness people that look that kind of look like us that are doing it and see that it's possible and that's why it's so important for them to see us absolutely representation is everything and I think ultimately the fact that we can take the knowledge that we have and pass it on and encourage and Inspire that that's really what it's all about I I literally joke around about the fact that okay I've done this but I expect the next next Generation to do it that much better than I did my mom tells me all the time she's like now that you have a son you're going to see that all you're going to want is for them to be better than we were all we're asking is that the next generation gets better than the last we're not asking you to take over the world you know just just a little bit better in whatever way whether it's even recognizing that my credit like something as simple as my son will never be in a leasing office talking about I need a coign okay but it's the the simple small things that I think we take for granted and it's important that we continue to just pass down that little bit of knowledge little by little that we just keep getting better well what I love about your life is that you're rich in every way because it is also about for us very important Familia yes and your your son yeah and you have a full creative life but you didn't just you know rest on your laurels you have not rested on your laurels and there is no resting here girl I'm going to tell you that I'm older than you and I'm going to tell you that you and you know this cuz you know how it doesn't get easier in life you have to keep at it 100% look at look at Chris Jenner in her 60s and she's crushing it yeah so this is a longdistance run but I'm just so proud of you being such an incredible Money Maker thank you thank you thank you so [Music] much

Channel: Money News Network

Views: 21,173

Keywords: money, finance, business, career, podcast, money maker, adrienne bailon, mi mundo rico, making money, make money, cheetah girls, nely galan, kardashians, kris jenner, wealth

Id: LqW40AMi6eY

Length: 41min 58sec (2518 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 15 2024