How Mom’s Stroke Took Me From $1 Menu To $1,000,000 Per Month Business! (KEENAN WILLIAMS INTERVIEW)

hi i'm keena williams and i'm olivia williams and i went from dropping out of high school catching the felony eating off the dollar menu to meet the love of my life and built a million dollar on my business and i'm lucky to be one of the passionate few man the interview was super fire with omar man he took us down memory lane we just remembered everything that we went through you know eating off the dollar menus you know being broke going from 300 to 3 million our first year in sales you know just remembering all the problems we had the bumpy roads you know glory days our glory days you know us celebrating with crabs after our first million man so many memories but we also talk about how we can help you how it's tangible information for you what we built for you guys to actually overcome whatever struggles you have yeah come check us out welcome to this episode of the passionate view today our guest grew up in alabama from very humble beginnings and aspired to do big things in life but while he didn't know how to it took a few years for him to figure out when he ultimately was in florida met the woman of his dreams and would ultimately start a company that would take him from eating off the dollar menu at wendy's and mcdonald's and ramen noodles to building a business into the millions we have none other than mr keenan williams thanks so much for being on the show today keenan it's a pleasure to have you on today my man so let's get right into it um tell the audience a little bit about what you do now and then uh we'll get a little bit into your story in your childhood but before you take us back tell us a little bit of what you're up to now and how you've been able to build the business so successfully oh man right um now we are pretty much in the spectrum of jumping onto another venture but as far as our skincare company everything is beautiful is perfect um we're up to eight figures within two years so that's amazing you know um and really just trying to focus on scaling you know that's always been our main focus scale scale scale you know never want to be stagnant like the last month we want to build it up build it up keep going i love it man and as you said going into eight figures you're talking to 10 million plus territory right um tens of millions but you know before that began you started out very humble beginnings right didn't look like you were headed for the millions um take us back where did you grow up what was your childhood like for you as a kid yeah man well um my mom she mowed us moves to us to alabama around five i was five um and just with that story alone you know and just to really grasp the whole concept of everything i'm adopted you know um my birth mother she was on drugs heavy you know crack and i had a lot of that in my system and everything my mom was the nurse at that time working at the hospital you know and she pretty much built a relationship with the young young lady who wanted to ultimately get a abortion and she convinced her to keep it you know and the moment i came out i went home with my mom now wow so it was a beautiful journey and you know that's when she wanted a better life you know she always wanted a better life because she i have three other siblings you know and when she seen the opportunity to move to alabama to start over you know she did it with her and my father you know so we moved to alabama at five and that's pretty much where i started man go to school and everything and it was definitely a journey and you grew up kind of humble beginnings rough situation financially i mean yeah man what were the economics like in the household as a kid i got you well um i can always say man my mom and my dad they did the best they could you know my mom she ended up landing a manager gig at an apartment complex and my dad worked up to the um to the head maintenance man so you know with that being said you will see a certain type of balance that pretty much led us into today with my mom learning how to handle tough situations being around you know angry people you know and my dad pretty much fixing whatever problem the apartments needed you know so it was pretty much like a you know problem solvers come on yeah yeah wow and as a kid did you aspire to do big things or entrepreneurship or did that kind of seed start later for you as a kid i mean what were your dreams when you were that young brother i wanted to do everything yeah i wanted to rap i wanted to play ball anything that i could grasp onto to help my mom out because she always knew i always said it you could ask her today she like he always said that yo mama buy you a house i'm gonna buy you a house even though we were in the process already building the house because by that time my parents were good at saving you know once they start meshing together really you know that's when everything went back up and you know she was able to buy a house but i said i'm gonna buy you a bigger house you know because you know we was able to stay on the apartments because you know like when you're a manager you get a free apartment so we was able to stay there for free and let them build their money up before we um built a house in the country in alabama now did you find being um adopted as a kid kind of drove you or did it in any way you know because there's a lot of great entrepreneurs for example like steve jobs right he was adopted and i know in interviews he talks about how that drove him uh to prove something uh do you feel like you had that early on or maybe that came about later or not not really definitely later on because i found out at 17. so you don't even know i didn't even know at that point i didn't know you know wow and it kind of asks a lot of questions because you would know i would notice things about myself like why am i quick to anger when my family is more patient you know playing with certain toys if i can't figure out the rubik's cube i'm throwing it out the window you know versus trying to figure it out and you know i was just always thinking about those type of things like why am i like this you know i do look like my mom a lot you know and so i never really questioned am i adopted or not right but i just knew i had a different childhood compared to my siblings you know because they were um at that time i think my youngest sister at that time was 14 when i was like two you know what i'm saying so the age difference are completely there the gap is huge so i had to learn how to play with myself you know what i'm saying as far as like creating up fictional characters in my head you know i use my name as my friends because my whole name is keenan jordan williams so i always had keenan jordan and william to play with you know and it worked yeah and it worked you know so yeah wow and then how about entrepreneurially did you try different things oh i did brother i listened i wanted these fresh kicks i wanted them very bad brother so i started saving every dollar because at that time lunch was 1.50 every day i saved every dollar and 50. my mom was wondering why i'm coming home scarfing down food like yo we need more food in the house it was it was to the point where i was saving money because i already knew they cost 130 what were they what kind of shoes man they was um they were the jordan 11s i believe what color do you remember man i believe it was the space shams originals i can't remember this specifically but i'm pretty sure it was the space jams i knew at that time i had to have them you know and i wanted a nice outfit to go with it so i started pricing i'm like yo it's going to be that's a lot of dollar and fifties that's a lot of love you know pizza ranch yeah you know you know it to the point man where my head i never think of things in that nature of being bad at the moment so my mom had this huge piggy bank that she said that was mine don't touch it to you go to college and everything yeah but i used to take money out of it and put ohio oh you signed in there just i owe you on there and she like did you take money out here no i didn't who put this sign down i took it i'll take it at this time man at this time brother i'm probably like nine ten oh wow so young you have yeah cause you see everybody else with the nice stuff on and my parents they always you know kept me presentable but you know it's not the best yeah you know if you're not the best in the house in school you're going to get to roll on especially at that age yeah and this is in alabama at that time this is alabama how about any other entrepreneurial hustles as you maybe went into middle school or early teens high school what are you doing selling candy selling candy you know going to dollar tree breaking down the 50 cent candy or whatever the case is yeah that's three dollars you know yeah i had a pocket full of like the um the kool-aid i'll put it in there i have it like little like nick bags like drug dealers like here here five dollars you get this whole thing got a strawberry thing yes you know pretty much trying to you know hustle my way up i always wanted money in my pocket always i never wanted to not know what it feels like to not have money because growing up around certain neighborhoods that we had to go pick up on the buses i seen how tough it was from them to me my environment was way easier than theirs you know so i never i had a fear it was like a fear that struck a chord at me like yo i don't want to end up like this and i know for a fact that i possibly could you know because at that time the only thing the only outs we had was either rapping sports you know what i'm saying so these are the only things that's actually plaguing my mind at the time like if i don't do this i'm gonna be a nobody yeah so let me at least try to hustle up enough money to do different things yeah cause this is in a day and age where you know there's probably not youtube or you can learn about entrepreneurship and i know now you have you know programs and educational courses where you help entrepreneurs play businesses the same way you went from zero to seven figures plus exactly so back in the day there was no education online right there's only way on tv you know and the i always wanted to dare to be different you know i used to draw my shoes man i'm talking about drawing like the m eminem logo on the top of my um my jordans or my forces you know pretty much just trying to create different hustles so i would tell people yo give me 25 give me your shoes after friday and i'll bring them back monday you know and they'll be fresh and you'll be ready to go you know i used to advertise myself by wearing my favorite was by far my blackout forces that my god brother bought me yeah and i i drew like the purple skittle logo and i always had a pack of skittles with me and i would drop them on the ground as i walk pretty much trying to create a grand entrance yeah oh that's a skittle man yeah yeah you know so that's my way of advertising back in school at that point i was in middle school transitioning she's like 12 13 at that point yeah man yeah you always had skittles on you exactly you know so everybody know okay he's in the lunchroom that's him let's go taste my rainbow yeah i get it man yes very cool how about into high school did that continue it continued it slowed down because then you know in high school going through identity crisis you know because you see certain artists that comes up like t.i you know i'm saying i'm like yo he was you know from down south as well you know at that time he's buzzing i'm like i want to be like that guy he has confidence he walks in the rooms and owns it you know just seeing certain things i'm like i want that because you know in school you have to put on a certain front sure you know especially in our schools like all the schools was always bad you know especially going towards high school every i was used to staying at my mother's friend's house every day after school and i have to go underneath this bridge and the bridge is horrible it's game bankers under there you know either they even trying to mess with you you know you gotta act corny or like you know just to joke around and laugh so you can make them laugh like oh you cool we ain't gonna beat you up but there was plenty of people they bleed beat up underneath there so i'm like ah man i i tried to come up with an edge it taught you how to build those skills that uh yeah sort of protected you yeah now what about when you were 17 right because it's around that time in high school that your parents told you that you were adopted yeah do you remember the moment they told you oh brother it was it was like a twilight zone moment you know um i at that time was with my my daughter's mother and my mom was saying hey son let's go to the park like mom why are you randomly saying let's go to the park that's not you you know yeah yeah that's not you you're 17 years old exactly like what are we doing yeah i'll let's go you know so i go to the park and it's two gazebos you know it's one whole family on one side and it's my family on one side you know and i'm looking because everybody's staring at me so you know automatically you get queasy like yo what's going on here what's going on here why is these people looking like if we're going to have a party just have a party but my brothers my brother's wife she's sitting there pouring out crying before anything was said like what is going on here like somebody died that i don't know about you know you can tell me you know i'm a big boy i can take it and you know that's when the birth mother she walked over there as well she walked over there as well and we all went for a walk and my mom said this is your birth mother it's like my world ripped upside down you know what i'm saying because adoption was never in my head that that could possibly be me you know and that's why i accredited my family a lot because they never treated me any different you know my brother treated me just as hard she beat me up just enough you know i'm saying my sisters they love me you know just enough for me to never know any of this you know and i just like fell on my knees man fell on my knees and my um my sister she came in my age and she was like listen nothing changes we're still family we're still family nothing changes you know it's just that now you have an additional family and at that point i didn't see it that way because once i started talking to the woman the first thing she told me was i'm surprised you're not in jail or dead wow because all of your biological mother yes because all of the it was it's a whole bunch of ladies there you know all of the brothers my brothers were in jail for you know heinous crimes either murder or attempted murder or something of that nature you know and that automatically let me know exactly who i'm not trying to be around you know because i've seen some of them before and that was my mom's reasoning she said listen she has cancer she's been asking to see you since you were yay high and i've been trying to keep that out of your life because i don't want you to want you to be confused and no i don't want that to happen you know but as she kept saying like yo i don't know how long i have my mom she was you know put on my mom's heart strings and stuff so it's like and at that time i was always in trouble you know i was always in trouble you know i'm bouncing back and forth because at that time i'm over here going between from my brother house you know causing little ruckus down there getting shipped to my godmother's house caught some little ruckus down there and then back to my mom's house all within like a year and a half a year and a half so she said i wanted to show you so you can see how much you so should appreciate what life you do have you know and boy that wasn't the reaction at first yeah wow and how old were you when you had a kid man i was turning 18. i was close to turning eight it was right around that same time yeah cause i wanted to clean my life up once i got through hating the world you know you sitting there like yo this shouldn't be me this should be you it should be random people i'm pointing that one it should be you you know um i know i wanted a better life because i know i wasn't doing nothing i'm good i was just running around getting in trouble all the time and once i knew i was having my daughter i knew i had to get out alabama is one of those places where at least the little small city we was in montgomery we already know if you have a job there at 18 that's the same job you're going to have at 25. you know it works like that you know and it's like i know i have to get out of here i don't want to repeat this insanity this this same redundant routine so let me go apply you know and get a better life for my daughter so we moved here i think my first job was walmart walmart how old were you at that time around 18. yeah around 18 19 you know um it was in the small town because my mom already had a spot up here she was pretty much ushering me to say yo son we're leaving you should come with us you know and at first i didn't want to hear it but once i found out i'm like yeah let me go ahead and go down there and try to give my daughter a better life you know so that's what we did i moved down there with my um child's mother and we stayed at my mom's house what the state this was um this is still florida this is still florida but it's like the zephyr hills part you know and then at what point does skechers come into the mix because i know working at skechers is actually integral part of your story oh yeah man it comes it comes much later you know it comes much later um at the walmart doing what we have to do you know um with differences me and my child's mother split you know i just wanted to make sure my child knew that i could pop i could be that bread winner so nothing would ever change you know but i know it was a hard journey especially with me and her you know i she was definitely a rock for the longest time you know saying she kept us up you know i'm in the bed crying she wiping my face like dad will be okay you know what i'm saying because i never wanted to be home i always wanted to be at my brother's house or around another family member because i didn't know how to operate alone with a child right you know even though it's my child i'm working 24 7. so you know you really never grasp full fatherhood until you have you in you know the child's time by yourself sure yeah especially that young yeah it was and you're pretty broke at this time man we were eating fish and grits every day brother i had a plug yeah i had a friend that was over there working at the fisher um at the seafood market yeah and he was like listen all i can give you is tilapia like i'll take it i'll take it i have a whole bunch of grits you know and my that was my daughter's favorite meal she was excited every night oh you know i had to play it up like i guess that's what we're gonna have yeah and she'll stay fishing grids you know so making the best of what your situation is yeah man for sure yeah and then what comes next um right after that man right after that i believe that's when my wife came into play um and this is in florida this is important and this is the infamous uh olivia yeah your wife do you mind if i bring her yeah absolutely so nice to have you on set nice to be here yes tell me a little bit because i know keenan before the interview you were telling about how you guys met and how olivia was actually a catalyst to you changing your life yes so take us back to where did you guys meet man how did that love story begin it's crazy man because you know with us going out every weekend in the club me and my cousin at the time we're going out every weekend but the where we're going now we knew it was wrong for the beginning like we're cashing out our check spending the whole check on the outfit yeah catching the bus to the club getting them all away yes getting off like five minutes before so we can walk around the corner so people wouldn't notice that yeah they wouldn't see that you know like with our shirts off so we don't sweat that much yeah so we had a whole little thing going on you know and i'm like yo we can't be in here having fun and every time the club ends we have to end up either walking home or sleeping inside um his step-dad's little area cause they have a little sleeping area that you can sleep in yeah yeah and then we'll just catch the bus home in the morning yeah you know so it's like yo let's let's stop doing this you know and we'll say listen man this is our live time going out you know we know we won't really be going nowhere these are the same people that we've been around for you know the few years you know and that's when we went out one more time you know um i know everybody in the club you know been there so many times and how old are you at this stage oh man at this time i am 20 40 24. i'm 24. no you were 23. i'm 23 at this time yeah and no million dollar business no business none of that yeah none of that but i still think i was still thinking i was poppy tuna yeah no i had the long hair you know i had a little swab about myself i'm like yeah yeah and for those of you guys wondering his instagram is actually poppy chulo underscore dreaded yes you guys can give him a follow there check him out please do please do man so we go in the club and everything i scope out the whole place i'm at the top at this time you know and that's when i seen my wife in there you know i'm like yo who's that she's different she's new she looks like she doesn't belong she she looked uncomfortable like that's not her scene yeah you know so i went down and i'm like let me go down here investigate you know make sure she's not with somebody or whatever the case is um drop some skittles yeah you know yeah so you know i approach her or whatever the case is i'm just playing it cool playing it cool i see her shrugging guys all four other cases i'm like i like that i like that she's not available to everybody yeah you know so i'm like let me just go closer and then i'm making jokes about the guys who she's shrugging off yeah you know then eventually one song came out i'm like all right you got to have the courage and i slid down and we're just sitting there dancing you know and she started grooving with me because i seen her laughing at the jokes we were saying i'm like okay i have to try it man i love it like they said laughing jury is never a hanging jury right yeah come on man so you get her laughing you guys start talking you guys hit it off right away oh man what happened yeah brother we're danced all night to the point where her friends left her and my cousin left me say yo you gonna be here i'm gonna walk around i'm gone wow and what was your first impression of kenan my first impression was like he said i didn't want to be there yeah at all i'm like i don't want to be here like it's a lot of people here and i'm a homebody i'm telling my friends i'm like okay no i'm just people watching that's my thing people watching i'm like okay look at that person look at this person and i look by the door and i'm like look at that guy in the pants he has some like black pants with gold chains on them so we keep walking and walking and then we stop we're like okay well let's just chill here see how it goes and i hear somebody come behind me and they that crack a joke and i'm like just laughing and i'm like he's so funny who is this guy and i look down like to my friends i'm like it's the guy with the pants yes yes and i look up he looks dancing so i'm like okay yeah let's dance we can talk you look safe yeah and from there like he said our friends left us and we danced the whole night brother i'm thinking the club listen the club opened up at 10. we're in there at 10 dancing all the way to three wow but it seemed like uh 50-minute time frame just floating it flew you know and it's just something the energy was was there it was different you know i knew it was otherworldly it had it was in our own little bubble yeah so everybody leave us and then we realized like oh they left yeah i called my friends like where do you guys go and they're like oh we left because we saw you with that guy and yeah we thought you knew him and i was like i didn't know him yeah you know it was like well you guys were like really close like you guys knew each other and i'm like we were just standing there dancing with each other and basically talking the whole night yeah but i didn't know him come get me yeah so they left me with a stranger yeah i walked into a car though you know like being complete gentlemen i was still thinking like wow people left yeah but you know walked into the car and everything so yeah and then at this time i know you guys started dating and and things kind of got serious really quick you guys realize there was power there but keenan you also mentioned to me that olivia helped revolutionize your way of thinking right yes yes um and if it wasn't for her there would be no business there would be no marketing of course no first million and beyond right right so talk to me about where that shift happened and how the relationship played a key role in you turning your life around your business right man brother just like you said man like we hit it off pretty quickly you know um her new babysitter was in the same apartment complex as me so i was super happy about that i'm like wow i get to see you all the time now you know um man oh just that first date man i only had a few dollars in my pocket you know i was like let's go eat up the streets did you know that or no no i didn't know i had to play it cool yeah you were loaded as far as the cool broke person yeah you know like yeah i got like 20 dollars in my pocket but we're gonna make it work you know so luckily netflix saved us and you never had a nice dinner even though the attacks came a little too i'm like yeah yeah and they were like we got you we got it yeah you know um but just going through those times man and she already had career goals you know and of course they were definitely um i was scared let's put it like that i was scared because i knew i i didn't have anything to offer at that time were you intimidated very very you know you don't meet too many women with clear goals like i'm doing this i'm going to open up a business i'm going to open up a restaurant once i use this money from the military she had a whole plan man and i'm sitting there like yo i just came from the club last week i'm getting outfits just so i can go out i'm eating fish and grits yeah like so i'm sitting there like yeah i love it i love it i'm like what the hell i got myself into what you know and at that time man we were falling more love every single day every hour felt like 10 hours you know i felt like an eternity every visit you know to the point i never wanted her to leave we were standing by the door talking for hours when she was supposed to leave because she got to go to work i'm like oh man i work at nighttime so i'm sitting there like yo yo yeah i worked overnight too yeah wow it was it was it was it was definitely something brother and when it came down to having that hard conversation like yo i'm going to leave you know it was one of the hardest ever because you know i didn't want her to go but that's one of the first times i can say i was truly selfless like man i don't want to be the reason why you stop your goals you have clear goals in life and this is in regards to her leaving to go to the military yes gotcha you know and it was time for her to go and it was hard for you to kind of cry crying i'm like yo crying really really crying you know and i'm sitting there trying to say the right way like listen just go and we can be friends and yeah you know in my head it's shut up don't say that tell her to stay tell her stay and how old are you at this time man at that time i'm still 23. point three okay still 23. i'm still 23. turning um 24 was coming close 24 was cutting it close but i'm like man jesus you know and she was like i'ma think about it yeah you know of course in your head you like please say you'll stay but then the other part of me was please go because the last thing i want to do is ruin somebody who i truly feel like i've been in love for the first time in my life stay and i'm nothing you know like i don't have nothing to offer this woman at that time i just had a job you know like and it was a piece of crap ass you know it was super super horrible do you remember how much you were making an hour at that time brother at that time i think this job i was working seven i was making seven dollars because i had skechers and warehouse at the same time yeah so the warehouse was from 12 to six sketches was from nine to three you know my total paycheck from both of those jobs after the week was like 500. you know after taxes like 400. so i'm working my my tail off trying to do something even though i knew that wasn't enough you know because i wanted to give her the world immediately i'm like yeah we're in the we're in the projects right now but it can grow to a mansion you know in my head but she came back man and she said i'ma stay i believe in us man my soul broke because i knew i had to reform it and be more in life now more than i ever been in life i had to grow to be a person i couldn't see because i dropped out in 11th grade at that time i already caught a felony you know what i'm saying from just doing knucklehead stuff in the street you know and i was trying to repair my life so getting those that nighttime job i only got that because all my brothers and you know cousins worked there so they got me that job skechers was super hard you know but good thing the judge um wrote adjudicated with the help so i was able to get that job still after like extensive so i'm like yo how do i do this with all these you know how can i take care of her yeah because she had a son a four-year-old son and i have a four-year-old daughter so i'm like we can be a family but you know family comes money comes stability you know factual financial stableness and i'm like ah how am i gonna do this you know who said even though i assured her like man i'm so glad we're finna we're gonna do big things i didn't know why i was about to do it brother i didn't know that's my job i told her to quit a job really yes and your motivation in your head was like i'm gonna like this is gonna be fuel on the fire because i'm gonna make this work i'm gonna figure out the finances i'm gonna make it work and no experience none at all just pure firepower motivation desire yes and olivia did you see like a change in him like what made you trust that he could turn his life around or see the potential was it just the way he was talking about it or the fire in his eyes i mean what was it where you trusted him well um [Music] like i said it was just unreal trust that i have for him it's like i don't know why i trust you but i trust you but i'm still gonna make sure i have a backup plan because my mom always said don't defend anyone yeah until they can show you that they can do everything they're saying they're doing so i was like okay i love you i'll stay and i'm not gonna quit my job yeah but we're gonna see how it works out and i know for a fact if i do stay we're going to make something happen we have to make something happen so if he got lazy or decided that he wasn't going to go through anything that he said he was going to go through that's when i was going to be like okay well i gave it a chance to give it a try i'm still young i'm going to the military but he pushed through and everything he said he was going to do he did and i was excited like every time any request he made it happen yeah and he's crazy yeah it made me so proud it was amazing it was like superman right yeah he's like hey you um need this and i'm like yeah i need that but i was gonna work for it and he was like well i got it yeah i don't know how he was doing it but he loved the power of woman yeah of the right woman unreal yeah you know yeah and and talk to me about skechers what happened at skechers that made the shift because i know there was a yeah right there right yeah man like that and that started the million dollar business run come on brother like pretty much skechers was quit right before i met my wife um it's busy you know and i'm the type of person that will come through for you because all i ask for is respect as a man i want respect i know you might be a manager i know you might have more money than me i know you might be in a better position but give me respect as human being i told every boss that i ever worked from chuck e cheese to walmart to skechers like yo i just want respect as a man they're like what you know it's always like when you hear that from a kid you're like okay you're making seven bucks an hour you're like i want some respect come on man because i'm gonna work my tail off i've worked my ass off for that company you know we were like first in the region like the year i came on i'm selling shoes like crazy i'm identifying customers like okay cool this is an older person so let me go ahead prefer them to these type of shoes let me go ahead oh this is a young person so i know they might want to be into our hipper shoes that i would wear so i'm trying i'm sitting there selling and everything because i felt a little bit of loyalty because he took us to um he took us to um what's the golfing the golfing place virtual golf uh was it topgolf topgolf yeah he took us the topgolf man and um you know as a team and i'm like yo i like that so i worked my tail off every weekend he asked me to come in when it wasn't my weekend i'm coming in for you i'm gonna be there for you 100 percent i came in on like on nine people shifts at that time he'll just have to call me keenan i'm like i'm there because i felt like this un this loyalty this this you know this brother brotherhood and man i was coming off a break it was a busy saturday my sister called me she said she called me the first time i missed her call because i'm thinking she just want to talk but she said emergency in the text i call her right before i go back home and she's like yo our mom just had a stroke you need to get to the hospital and i'm like what uh oh okay you know send me the address i hung up and this time like it seemed like our hours are not that long and my manager at the front you know and i'm like yo i'm sitting there that was like the longest walk ever because in my head i'm not super you know keen on strokes i just know sometimes you have it and you might not survive right you know so i'm in my head thinking my mom could pass from this my healthy mom who runs go to the store three times a day you know what i'm saying like sit there talk trash with the best of them i'm thinking you know like how you know so i asked him like can i i need to go see my mom my mom just had a stroke in the hospital i just need to go right now and his response was go back out there and sell shoes this is saturday do you see what day this is i just told you my mom had a stroke i don't care go back out there and sell shoes you know obviously two options in my head you know it's either me and this guy gonna have it out i'm just throwing my shirt and leave that's what i did i chose the second option i threw on my shirt left super fast and went by my mom you know what i'm saying went by her side and everything because to me that's the most important thing family you know family you know the woman who obviously you know at this point i know how much my mom has done for me from being adopted so i'm like yo i'm tr i have to be by her side if these are her last hours you know luckily you know she's alive and well today you know but i told myself i would never work for nobody else who disrespected me walmart was the same thing i had to deal with racism you know guys saying yo man we ain't not one of these little boys in the street like you used to not one of your little friends in the hood you know not even knowing my background i worked my way up from cart pusher to electronics manager at that job so my work ethic has always been to grow at whatever i'm doing no matter what i don't know how i'm gonna get there i know if i just keep applying pressure something will change right no i'm over here educating myself on what it is to be an electronic manager i'm trying to learn from the previous ones there you know i'm like yo i want to because i had diapers was expensive man you know they're like 17.99 at the time my daughter running through them like crazy i'm like i need money you know so just to go back to this i said nah i have to figure this out myself so the only job i kept was a nighttime job you know just in case just in case i'm like i gotta keep this i'm not going back to work for nobody else though i need to find another way wow and you quit and never looked back i quit man never looked back brother you know i started educating myself on anything online because at that time i got on early instagram where what year is this man this is this is 2015 i believe 2015 16. it's around that time man to the point where i got on early instagram far as like the celebrity status like where you can grow 10 000 followers like that from just getting shouted out by somebody else who's you know saying who has followers as well so i jumped in that lane with the shout out for shout out you know and i was trying to figure out how to make money from this early ages because i go i went back to the mindset of selling candy in school and everything like i need to find something out i'm pretty sure people are making money online and that's when a couple people they were they kept it quiet though you know they i seen them like upgrading things they kept quiet they kept posting stuff i'm like this ain't a picture of you what is this nobody didn't want to let me know you know one brother he did you know he's super popular on social media now so thank you kwa you know but he finally let me know yo man we're over here doing advertisements for this company and then that time i had i was getting close to 100 000 followers on social media so i'm like okay cool you know let's try that and we tried that tried to promote people you know we started making a little money as soon as we made 500 a week which was my total for both of those jobs i quit mine wow you know so you had been growing instagrams and then like people pay you 500 for a shout out or a couple hundred bucks for a shout out yeah man i was charging cheap prices brother i was charging like 25 for 24 hours hitting up everybody who had a business period like yo i can help you grow you know to me i was worrying about the macro you know saying like okay cool if i keep getting all this i can accumulate enough money to take care of my family right you know so that's pretty much what i did man i i kept it at like man if we can make 500 a week consistently for at least three weeks i quit my nighttime job that's what i did you know when we got close to a thousand i that's why i said babe you can really quit your job now yeah you know we got to a thousand a week yeah when i got to a thousand a week and then how did the company which would later take you guys into the seven figures how did that come about as you built the social media platform because social media was a big part of how you guys built it yes it was a big part and all of a sudden a certain thing called kit came in and people switched up how they would do promotions and we kind of lost that revenue i'm like oh my god we just went to zero yeah you know so it's like had to find other memes yeah you know so reaching out that's when i um stumbled upon like affiliate companies real quick you know and this whole time man we already had our business concept and and play as far as for one of the film the companies i was working for i was promoting skincare for them and things were going amazing you know money was growing it went from a thousand a week to like two thousand a week you know five thousand a week this is life changing money we're we're eating good at this point we're eating at every restaurant in town yeah like baby we're good we're the president of tampa let's go and this is skin care the skin care network yeah this is skin care niche you know that we was promoting for everybody else because then that's when i started veering into checking out different events you know but this is literally like one of my first suits that i ever bought my stylist said you know we got to be bold you have to be noticed i'm like i don't want to be bold i don't even wear suits i wear black tees and white tees you know but he was like listen let me let me start you up and trust me you know i started to meet certain people because they know the compliments on the outfits like yo you should get into this and that's how i got into the skincare niche with them and it was going amazing you know and it's like the moment when we tried to like it was like let's get a house now let's get a house because at this time this will be our second house because the first one we had um from the apartment which let's just go back a little bit um it was it was that moment you know in the projects when my wife moved in with me and it's pretty much dark one night you know and she told me to bring my gun i didn't know why but she's my eyes she's always been one of the suspicious people in the neighborhood that wasn't necessarily necessarily there like regularly and they were like looking at us my husband he's just walking like i moved in with him so he's like these are normal people i'm like no i don't know him i don't know him and i've been here for a couple months so it's looking kind of weird cause they're eyeballing us and he's just trailing through like i own the neighborhood blasting some music yeah yeah you know and i'm like this is weird yeah so he went upstairs and i'm like okay the trash needs to be taken out can you take that out and he said yeah i'll take it outside please take your gun because you don't know these people and he's like no i don't need my gun i'm like you need your gun this is weird i get real vibes from these people and you need to take your gun and he's like no i'm like take the gun it was like a literally a four minute five minute conversation yeah should i take a weapon to take out trash for two seconds yeah my head it didn't make sense but in her head it made perfect sense and that probably is the ultimate thing that saved my life that night you know um the guys came around the back where the camera wasn't because it was facing a different way and they came in there with guns you know and that's because i think we bought a 60-inch tv at that time and this is when you're making five ten thousand a week or whatever exactly yeah you know so i got my gun we're both raising it and all i want them to do is leave man you know but you got people over the balcony they're just watching they got their phones out i'm thinking they're calling the police but they're recording like what y'all gonna do what y'all gonna do that's the words what y'all gonna do versus you know it's stupid instead of like trying to help they're trying to put on world star yeah you know like you want somebody to die in this situation yeah you know and i'm like man we got to get out of here we saved 20 000 the best way we could yeah mcdonald's wendy's wendy's dollar menu you know what i'm saying yeah you know oodle noodles man said there saved enough money just to move in the first house just to find out that people were breaking in houses over there yeah you know so this house that we was trying to move into from the skin care you know just go back to that now from the money that was making from care i'm like man let's do this you know i get paid really well from them at that time i could scale it up to five to ten thousand a week if it was ten thousand i probably made five thousand profit so i'm like yo we can move in with this you know we're gonna hit break on ground or whatever the case is and have our own house and that's about the time that we was going into getting it they end up missing they're going missing man you know the company like they were like yo we'll pay you when this person comes back from vacation like oakwood three-day vacation like ah we'll see it was like three months man wow yeah we lost that we had to move back into apartment yeah we had just so it's like up down up down and just to go back real quick on the night with the gun so you go out take out the trash and guys pull up with guns yeah like they was walking up they came up from from behind the buildings it's horrible lighting in that old apartment of mine now what did they want or what was the they just said give it up man you know what i'm saying give it up give it up run the pockets you know and i'm like yo i got gym shorts on i can't yeah i really got something i changed my clothes every time i go in the house you know i'm like i don't have nothing i don't have nothing at the time i'm holding my guns up they're like you must got something let's go in your house i'm like we're not going to my house because her son is there you know what i'm saying and she's there of course and i'm like we're not going to my house that's what we're not going to do we can sit out here and you know say have an old-fashioned showdown if that's what we're gonna do and i'm looking for the people to try to signal the people i'm talking loud man so everybody in the neighborhood could possibly hear me so they can call the police man you know what i'm saying and it was just a horrible experience we ended up backing off like 10 minutes later they went their way ran and i ran back upstairs you know at that time i jumped right in the shower my wife like what's wrong what's wrong i'm sitting there crying profusely man i'm i'm mad cause i'm like somebody could have really took me away from my family like i prayed for this i wanted this so bad a family and just to lose it like this you know these are the thoughts that was going through my head i'm like yeah i have to we ought to do better in life we have to move so that became your motivation to get up and make things happen for sure okay and then going back to the skincare company and you are you guys promoting them as an affiliate online through email social media or social media business histogram so for example they have a product for 50 bucks you post about it i'll post about it fifty percent if someone buys 25 bucks exactly and you guys figured out a way to scale it by posting on instagram or what was specifically you guys strictly instagram brother we kept posting it through instagram you're posting nonstop reaching out to influencers bro like was really running the game brother you know and really working at a high risk i'm talking about i'm work i'm working at those hours that people are asleep you know because i'm like yo if i can do this i know in california right it might be you know three o'clock where i'm from but it's 12 o'clock right now you're playing the time zones exactly and that's that was a huge part of the success with that because that was when we made the bulk of our money is at night time because people were asleep you know all the people who i knew who was probably doing the same thing i'm like oh yeah i know how to get this on you my wife you know i got music in my ears and i'm over here babe yeah and so you're you're paying influencers to post it yeah use my affiliate link yes so you're just running that hustle i'm running it man wow and you auditioned a bunch of different things to sell before you realized that niche was the most popular yes brother i was doing hair hair um niches it was probably paying a few because with instagram it was already the most popular yeah you know site especially at that time yeah especially you know you know like a bunch of stuff yeah the algorithm of them is like perfect yeah everybody in the world can see you yeah you can get seen by like barack obama like from posting one thing at that time so i'm like yo everything we're selling is hot but this is hot hot we never made this type of money before and at that time it still was like five ten thousand but that was like five ten thousand a week and what's the price point of the products man the products was um i think they would sell it for 80 and they would give me 50. but they're planning is hitting it on the email marketing so they were making a lot it was making a killing people was bringing it up to my attention they were like no when you go to these events you're a rock star how can you not see that yeah people walking up to you hey man they're giving me hugs you know they're like yo vip everything is on us you know cause me i told you man i'm just a happy-go-lucky guy man i'm really just there to take care of my family so i'm not really thinking about numbers i'm not really thinking about um the back end of business i'm just worried about my family and the moment where i didn't get paid for three months it changed my mind completely on what's the game now it's time to be the the hustler instead of the customer you know so instead of being an affiliate you start your own skincare yeah and i told them that i said yo i'm gonna start my own thing you know and matter of fact we had that conversation literally right before this happened and they scared me to not do it they say yo you know starting a business is a heavy thing you know like you got to deal with lawsuits lawsuits i'm like oh lawsuits oh my god i don't want to deal with that you can lose everything i'm like i'll just stick with this so they was kind of baiting me to stay in that little you know saying in the bubble keeping you playing small yeah you know but after that i'll say i can't put my family through that we had to move back after we sat there listen going to model homes is me and my wife's like thing yeah you know if we want to be chaired up we're going to model homes we're looking at different homes the beautiful the just the beauty in moving into a new place so for us to talk about that every night you know and for them to have my kids run and pick out their rooms yeah like go pick out your room they used to run through the model homes like yeah we found our rooms like one day yeah just to visualize let's make it happen and not paying us for three months so me telling the guy who's waiting for the money saying yo you guys can move in tomorrow i'm like just wait and i'm praying every day i'm contacting them every day too they said they still haven't come back or they're avoiding my calls you're waiting for that payment to move into the place yes you know and i'm like yo this is this is crazy that's when nobody was coming in you know nobody was coming in at all man and i'm like yo i got to start my own business i got my start my own business and what's funny is with skechers they never sent me my last check i don't know if it's the way i left or whatever the case is but they sent that last 300 check i know exactly what to do with it i'm going to order products you know i'm starting very small very very very small very small and with that money we're going to start this company you know i drew up the little logo on a piece of napkin i showed her how did you come up with the name man ko elixir funny is um keenan and olivia ah yeah i told my wife i'm like i'm gonna put it in you know so i thought it meant like knockout at least that's cool so ko elixir right and that's interesting because a lot of people would see you and they would think you know skincare that's a feminine company or whatever but you saw the opportunity you saw the numbers that it made sense did you guys talk about different ideas or like in terms of what business to start or had you already seen so much momentum with the skin care that you're like alright we're already doing well here we know the cells let's stay in the niche what was the rationale well we we tried tried a lot we tried a lot it was a very short short period i was a model for a lot of things hey baby wear this where is it that's why all the money we really never could save money from the affiliates because we was already trying to do our own thing always hey let's get this didn't work hey like one time we swore these t-shirts because it was a beautiful idea we got t-shirts it had like a mine had like a key on it and it says um what she has she has she has she has mine yeah and then hers had a lot a heart with a locket and said only he has yeah you know so it was supposed to be a beautiful thing i'm like look we're in love the world's in love yeah we can sell two at a time yeah yeah we had one order from like a 60 year old woman we wore every shirt to bed every size you know if i wanted to be brolic i wore a small hole like you guys use the whole inventory yes man we're listening to drake we're like oh we better get it yeah we're going home yeah it didn't happen you know promoted threw a little money at it like nah this is done so constant attempts and failure in business and just kept going yeah so then you start ko elixir skincare company yeah and how does it go i mean what happened revenue wise because i know you got a pretty amazing stat with that yeah brother the first time we did it man i think we i'm talking about the first day launch we made like 120 bucks i'm like that's good no promotion no nothing you know then we moved up to like the 500 a week and this is when i bit the forbidden fruit for the last time because one of those companies came back around again you know cause obviously i'm an affiliate guy at that time yeah and they said you know we have the best offer for you and this is after i made my money and then the guy came back to me he said yo guess what i got a surprise for you i'm like what we got your check like what you know they got my check and they said look we threw an extra um 10 000 on it just because we took three months i'm like thank you but i'm done with y'all you know y'all are nothing to do me like this so it's a twenty thousand dollar checks in there you know and i'm like yo i can put this into my business but then one of the companies came back around and said yo it's a beautiful opportunity come on just put some money in there you're going to see it so i'm like cool i put like 200 into the first day for advertisement before advertising made a thousand wow so the next day boom now i said like 13 000. like what how how was it they said it's hot brother i'm trying to tell you put everything towards it we're putting everything towards it at this time i had money in the shoe box i was collecting ones every time i broke a 20 any ones i put in the box you know and this over the course of all that time i'm making all this little money to the point where six thousand ones in there so i run i run through the 20 000 the whole 20 000 because i'm not afraid to risk anything if i see reward because you know you got the dashboard and everything you can see your revenue you're like ooh friday is gonna be a good day for you they're beefing me up i'm like baby come on we went to the bank got all the money out put it all back in the marketing my shoe box emptied it man we were supposed to see like the biggest payday in our life which would be like 50 to 100 000. yeah you know in a weekend it was like man oh it's right here we just gotta wait the friday you know all the money is going everything every dollar is gone you know everything that i wanted to invest in my company i didn't you know and we were sitting there waiting i called i'm like yo um it's not here because they normally pay me friday when i wake up it's in their account yeah like nothing is an account they were like oh we're having trouble what trouble trouble what trouble ah man the traffic came back bad man i don't know what you mean came back back well ah they're just saying a whole bunch of things now they don't want to pay like what you what do you mean they don't want to pay like they have to pay right they have to you know like this is our money man we just moved in this nice house thinking that we feel like you know like at that point because we scaled down we said okay we can't get this house if we can get something for like 1500 um a month or 2000 a month we'll be straight that's what we did we moved into a house rented instead of buying it and i'm like rent was coming up i said at that point i'm like yo listen least at least give me my money back give me my money back give me my investment back my original investment and we're square i don't care about nothing else all that money that we gained throw it away you know let them tell them to keep it but can i get my money back they said no they said it they may they may want to sue you man so i i squared it away for you so you don't have to deal with that it made it seem like it was like one of the inside type of jobs where they ran off with my money because they was moving independent bringing me offers when i shouldn't have trusted in the beginning but when you like i said the loyalty man it got it got to me because i'm like okay cool i see all rebels y'all quit the system you know y'all rebels like me that's pretty much they was pitching me because they know my background they know you're weak you're stopping yeah man so i'm like oh i love it rebels let's go let's make it happen and yeah that didn't happen man i'm in the closet crying i'm swinging it they're all our clothes they ran out with all the money my wife she ran off with all the money ma'am all of it my wife she's in the room at that time and she's always been the healer you know so she comes in there babe what's wrong what's wrong i'm i'm laughing it's time like it's over it's over it's over for us like what are you talking about we lost it we lost it all listen take your time take your breath yeah we got this we got this and i'm that's the top i'm getting loud i'm like no we don't it's over everything is going no money in our house and i get frustrated you always do this it's always over i'm gonna just go lay down yeah cause any time i have a problem i i ball in the corner and say it's over yeah but this time i'm like it's for real you know and she she walks off crying man and i knew that was because of my tone and how i carry things so i'm like i need to stop acting like a little i need to pray and i need to go because at that time i still had to go to um it's crazy because i made prior engagements with my guy brother to go check out this factory so we're thinking that this is going to take off the skin care company we're looking at factories for people to do fulfillment right just to find out i don't have no money so i'm looking i'm down there like this yeah they showed me a lot of things i'm like this is nice this is nice like you okay yeah okay i told my brother i'm like i'm broke brother it's over it's over yeah you know it was horrible bro you know and i end up going to my tuesday meeting just get gathering with a lot of men of god and we sit there either talk about business or you know break open the bible and talk about scripture and i told my pastor i'm like pastor it's over uh i don't have no more money you know i probably have to get a job and i told myself i promised myself i would never put myself back in that position because i had the uh the unluckiest careers of getting talked to talk down about you know and it's like yo i promised myself i wouldn't do that to my family i wanted to be the man in my household and i'm not yeah you know my role in our relationship is when he gets like this i step in and i'm like okay well you got this you need to get up stop crying and you need to keep going because you promised me a life i promised a life with you when i said i'm stay and we need to keep the ball rolling we have to get up and we have to get going we can't cry our way to anywhere and if you do cry keep going yeah and cry at the same time yeah so i always pick him up and say okay come on watch your face let's go let's keep on going we got to find other ways to do things and this time it broke me i didn't because he was crying in a way that i never seen him cry before and now i'm crying and i had to encourage him to go with his brother to the fulfillment lab and then that night had to encourage him to go to his men's meeting and it's like like where do we go from here because now he's crying too deep well i don't know how to stop crying right because you know you always got that stash of money yeah yeah like when the t-shirt business failed we still had like 500 over here yeah you know so as long as we had something yeah you know and you know it's scary to be an entrepreneur and know that you cut your check nobody else does you don't bring in the chicken you don't eat literally so i'm like oh man we're broke i thought i talked to my pastor he said yo you have the knowledge you know how to do it do it over again make it happen you know no need to cry son god got you and i said that same thing to him too yeah before he went there so his pastor said well our pastor said it he said my wife said the same thing like i'm like yeah because throughout the whole process i kept telling him yo you're selling for these companies we want to start our own business one day take it as a learning lesson every time you fall down take it as a learning lesson and it's like school i kept saying it's like school you need to learn everything when he tried on his suits when he felt uncomfortable i'm like you have to do this it's like school it's the next level you have to do everything you need to do just do it and you were like you were like keenan's mentor in a certain sense right in the sense like yeah you're his his motivation yeah that voice that voicemail pokes him forward he told me what he want and i can't necessarily necessarily say i was his mentor but if you tell me what you want i'm gonna help you get to it yeah so if you fall down i'm like okay you want this you have to get up keep going and that's how it was it's a cheerleader i love it yeah man it was beautiful brother and ko elixir keenan and olivia elixir um once you guys launched it what what were sales like initially and how did you like what was this the momentum where you noticed the numbers getting up and up revenue wise got you so um once we made 500 um and i blew the money back in affiliates i said i would never do that again so i said i just need to do one good run with the company i trust in affiliate marketing so i did that one good run you know was able to make a thousand dollars just pure profit you know because i didn't do no marketing on other people's pages i use it on mine i normally don't use my platform for that because i wanted to save it because i i knew one day i wanted to do what we do now as far as the course we'll talk about later and everything and inspiring millions um so i did that we made a thousand dollars you know and with that thousand i put it back into marketing you know for ko everything we did from that point was for ko i'm talking about pawning tvs printers it was for ko you know we primed the tv for a printer so we could start printing out the labels i'm talking about we're cutting it out on the paper we're putting glue on the leg yeah it was very homemade brother come to jesus moment when it was like this is the reason why we said we were going to start our own business yeah this stuff keeps happening to us yeah so no company right there could yeah i i tuned them out i'm like nah from now on i'm the big dog you know because i let y'all control every part of me because you know it's like that false sense of being a real entrepreneur which is why i tell my students anything that you're not if you're not cutting your own check you're a false entrepreneur they try to give you that rules like yo you're your own boss how if you guys can run off with my money all right how if it's not going directly in my bank account it's going to y'all first and then you're giving it to me you know no so i said no we're gonna put everything towards it and everything was on the up and up brother i'm talking about as far as sales to the point where celebrities cousins was getting in contact with me you know like yo i would love to try this and everything my cousin is this person you know i never thought that was like true but i'm like ah then i'll see that person my my sales just went crazy that's because they just did something on their stories about my products and everything so we was just going up and up man and we seen like a thousand a week we were like this is good of course i'm still not thinking of it like the affiliate money because i'm like we've just seen five thousand ten thousand before yeah and then we've seen ten thousand literally like the next week so it was growing very rapidly we've seen six figures within two months we celebrate it yeah we celebrate it because we are the type of people well i'm the type of person i'm not looking at money yeah i'm looking at the work that i'm putting in because if i get money i'll fix you i'm looking at the numbers too much i get caught in the numbers and that's what i don't want to do get caught in the numbers it's complacent get comfortable yeah you know you focus on measuring the output not the exactly so all we're trying to do is word and that at that time we didn't we couldn't we was in the kitchen you know like my sister came along you know she's now the manager of a company and everything you know she was god said she came along and helped us out we have trash bags by the door of products like packaged ready to go for people to the point at that time i had a camaro so i used to drop the top and carry like 30 bags you can't even see my face yeah i'm just driving to the boardwalk you guys products yeah go on it throwing it man you know and it's like yo when i finally checked my phone i think we was at 300 000. you know i called her i was crying you know i was crying i used to beg for him to check him like check it he please like ease my mind that we're actually making money because you're working pretty hard yeah make sure we ain't losing because i didn't at that time i didn't i'm not doing properly lost man you know i'm just happy that we're doing our own thing right for real this time you know and when we checked 300 000 you know i was like man i'm not worthy you know i just started yeah it was a coming to god moment like yo how are how is this happening to us 300 000 that's wow that's a lot of money you know and at that time we we went home and we celebrate we celebrate with crabs that's what we do yeah we crack crabs open and as we're watching hgtv those houses don't seem so far away now yeah you know like you see in the two million dollar houses you like one day yeah yeah one day yeah no we kept persisting and the thing that pretty much everybody knows us on the internet for is making a million dollars in six months you know it was the same thing but there i checked it randomly getting my hair cut i'm like oh i put the phone down yeah i said i gotta tell you something when we get home hung up on crab tonight you know yeah yeah they're on me tonight yeah man as soon as i said we hit the million dollar mark yeah like what i'm like yes we did it was so surreal i'm like i mean i don't think so yeah i had to show her the numbers man she didn't believe me man and when i showed her she like wow oh my god like we did it we're we're some millionaires we we're there you know and um immediately we started planning uh a million dollar company party yeah you know we wanted to do that you know obviously we're scared too we're scared to let the world know anything about us at that time nobody didn't know the faces of ko they don't know if it's a woman or a man behind it they automatically assume it's a woman because of the cadence and how i was talking to him and how i cared about problems and that's how i had to learn from my wife listen listen more care more because everything that she says is important to her versus how i think it's not important so much to me so i just translated all that into business which helps sales immensely you know and we never wanted people to know who we are because we didn't want to get judged yeah you know and what type of products did you guys sell like what are the range of products under max it was like stretch mark cream cellulite cream so we was helping women like after babies and everything postpartum and stuff you know so they that's you know because originally i started it for the money i knew it was profitable but then you love the testimonies man yeah when you hear a person say you got you gave me my confidence back i had my confidence i went out there now i met my husband you know and you read beautiful testimony she's like yo i like people now you know before i had a false sense of people because of how i grew up i grew up in areas where you can't trust this person especially after the whole yeah god bless your back yeah careful so you're more cynical yeah so to me i'm like people are meant to be this and that until you actually experience the beautiful souls out there and it's like it's a different um thank you very much it's a different outlook in life now you know so we had to do the party we said we swallowed it up because at that time nipsey hussle died you know this was around the same time when we hit the million dollar mark and it's like we don't want that to happen to us by people knowing who we are we don't want to get attacked because we don't know who people know so it's like we could be around our cousin but who do our cousin know that might have ill intentions towards us or know where you live you become a target yeah cause you know people talk they get happy they get excited oh my god but that's something we had to take up with god and say look we're gonna do it we're gonna do it you know why because if we don't do it how are our nieces and nephews gonna think that making a million dollars is impossible we thought it was impossible you know we was just working to survive to hit that mark was like yo it's so much more to life it's not just being a ballplayer it's not being a rapper you can make good life-changing money by starting your own business yeah so that was the party and that's what it was centered around we hit the million dollar mark we invited a lot of people of course you know people everybody don't show up because everybody's not going to be happy for you you know so we had to be in turn happy for ourselves and document it because we know what we're doing now film lives forever yeah you know even after we perish you know that one day they have that to go back to yeah the body of work that lives on i've seen it we wanted to build legacy for our children yeah that was another thing that we bonded on when we first got together our children growing up with us being married and like his parents my parents are separated and having something to give to our children versus leaving them with debt yeah and that was our angle make money for our children and just live happy yeah so it was never about a we never had the mark in our head yeah you know how everybody say yo i want to make a million dollars that wasn't our goal our goal was to survive survive and be our own boss so nobody would mistreat us like how they handled us before right so you know after the party and everything it showed us like we can let the world know who we are now i believe it's safe to say that we're safe and covered that we can let people know who we are yeah and i've seen my mom put a very unhealthy dose of paranoia on us oh yeah she was like hey peter's going to kill you don't tell anybody hide it to yourself don't even let your kids know just keep it yourself so many people don't do that and now you're left uninspired you're only looking at the rapper they might be talking about you know things in their music that you don't want your kids to know yeah right or you got to look at playing ball where we know it's like a one percent chance that you could even make it to the league right you know i wanted to show people it's other means of really making money out there no matter what your background like i said i dropped out in 11th grade you know had felonies and it's like yo we still made a million dollars so if i could show everybody else like no matter what you do in life you can do it we came together and made best of a situation you know that was small but we grew it to something big yeah yeah and that fueled your passion in business and now you guys share it with others yeah so talk to me a little bit about for people who are watching this and go whoa like that was an amazing story right right yeah appreciate you guys sharing that but uh for people listening and maybe they want to find out more information about your course your program we'll put a link in the description below you guys can follow them hit them up can you talk a little bit about what the course teaches and you know what you've seen and helped some of your students for sure yeah for sure man um skip the seven figures man cigarette defense figure is just name of the program and everything um we call ourselves seven game seven figure earners gang going after new goals yeah you know and that's pretty much our outlook you know our sign is this is seven in asl you know um i wanted to create that for multiple reasons i wanted to give people an extra outlet versus just listening to my course my my videos so even with that that's that's priceless you know i teach people how to start and grow a business step by step you know successfully versus the because everybody thinks they need a loan yo i need a million dollars in order to make a million dollars no we started with just 300 and created our company you know so you don't need all all this and all that you know and it's only 35 at first we charged 20 bucks you know i wanted to go to different route from all my google you know fellow friends yeah i know i wanted to do something where people could actually afford man you know like that my realism of looking at my mom's situation or you know anybody's situation when it's like yo money not might not be 100 there but you have the passion and you know what you're capable of and it wasn't about money at that point because i felt like we could live off our business so i wanted to charge pretty much dirt cheap to nothing you know i tell people like you're just paying for the program at this point you know the system you're paying for the system that i gotta pay for every month basically with how cheap it is yes you know and man we was able to create some magic over there you know so it's not only that you get the program you get added to a private page full of thousands of entrepreneurs you know we have beautiful souls over there man like uh miss christine who helps people build their llcs you know or any who pretty much helps everybody else with their problems she delegates so much so it's like we don't even have to really say anything too much but i do go on live every other night on there and we just talk business and game like right before you came here man we're a family we love each other that's all we always i love you i love you so it's it's something that we're building because we know our purpose is so much bigger i tell everybody that all the time i keep it super real with them we want to succeed so we can change the world i want to buy an island for them you know a city you know that's why i'm working up to that billion dollar goal you know um because we really want to help people you know and just for some of those students we give out 100k plaques every time they pass it you know we have like five six of them so far and the program only been open for seven eight months bro wow you know um people like perfect ph you know came out there with her feminine care line you know killing it you know um my brother mike man you know come out there with his skin care line killing it you know ruben you know just beautiful souls and they out here killing it man they're making it happen and they're pretty much become like the ambassadors of the group where they talk to the people as well because a lot of people want to hear from them but it works because we're a family you know i upload content every so often it's like the netflix of business you know i only i don't have fluff in there it's straight to the point i tell people how to do this where to get this from do this do that do this do that the exact same formula we use we used for our business to grow our business because this is pretty much about marketing versus starting the skincare line so i'm telling you can be successful doing anything you want let me show you how to do this and i'm not worried about competition which i know most people they say yo i have a problem with courses because they might give 25 of the info versus me giving 100. yeah because it's not about that touch you know like we know we want to free god's people in a way where we see the 905 really don't take care of everybody how it should you know they cap you at a certain rate when you are worth more than eight dollars an hour i knew i was worth more than eight dollars now but back then i couldn't speak up for myself though because i didn't have no backings nobody else i didn't have a me to teach me yeah you know i didn't have a couple like us to look at back then you know because we we say it all the time like man i wish somebody wrote this book for us being a couple being an entrepreneur couple you know every decision it's you're literally either building your empire or destroying it like it was crazy you know yeah you know about it brother yeah and you don't necessarily have to have i mean start a business from scratch come in with into our business you can have a business that's probably just not making this much as you want it to yeah and we can help you grow it show you how to grow it organically now let me ask you this um i have three more questions for you wrap up here and this is one of them is what do you think the biggest mistake that most entrepreneurs make that you guys have seen that you've kind of helped people correct or whether it's mindset or their best practices what are the biggest mistakes you see most entrepreneurs make yeah man they start too soon they start too soon without lack of information you know this is really um research research research we know facebook is winning because they have data they have understood the game for a long for a long period of time and the same thing with anything i tell people no matter what product you start but you have to know the most about that product when somebody pull up on you and say yo i want to buy this tell me about this you already supposed to have it in your head without sitting there studying ah i mean uh you're supposed to know no my products gives you this it gives you this it heals this you know you're supposed to know the science behind it if you know the science behind it you will do well you know and that's the problem people start businesses of they don't care about they start businesses they don't care about because they think that it might be profitable for them versus sitting there learning and saying okay cool i know what to do now i know how to work mm-hmm like they say the best businesses are the best servants yes it's about understanding how you can really serve exactly you have to be a server man and i feel like where they feel at when they first start is not having a real why you don't know why you're doing it you just want money like you might not be struggling or you might be struggling but even still that's not going to take you all the way there like for us like i said it was our children we needed something for our children if anything happened for to us any day at any moment we needed them to be secure so you have to have a why why are you doing this why are you selling this product why are you okay with taking people money and living off their money but it's not going to sustain you for a long period of time because now you're playing playing a short game you know exactly yeah so if you're going to play the short game have a good reason why to keep you going and then until you'll feel okay with taking people's money like you accept it and say hey i have this reason why i have to do this versus give me your money give me your money give me your money right i'm gonna stop this next week but i need your money now that's that's crazy to me yeah but that's what i feel makes people feel they have short-term goals they don't have any real why this is a long-term game yeah it's macro and it doesn't work out because they give up too fast yeah okay what about this when it comes to relationships because a lot of people might be watching this and they go okay this is insightful not only for business not only your guys's story of you know overcoming adversity and being resilient in life and business but when it comes to relationships what's your best advice and you guys can each chime in here yeah on what it takes to have a relationship that works because i mean even your guys chemistry handholding like i love the connection here and let's face it i mean we we live in a society especially now post covid yeah where divorce rates are through the roof couples are finding people in the wrong relationships millionaires billionaires and broke people go through the same you know tragedies in their personal relationships but clearly you guys have something that not only works but took you from dollar menus to millions come on um what advice would you guys give to people out there around the world watching or listening if you could give you know your best piece of wisdom on what it takes to find a relationship or make relationship that really works right i would say have that hard conversation first that hard conversation has to happen like hey what are our goals one of us will have to fall back and make a goal together you know and that's what people don't want to do they have like my wife did she she let go of the career goal that she had in her head for the common one that would build us ultimately an empire down the road and that's the thing that most people don't want to do they're like no i want to do this i'm going to do this and what another person say i'ma do this then and it never really works off because yeah they pull apart man to the point where the love cuts out of it versus saying let's build something together that's the beautiful thing about having a partner is this is a partner through life and death man like you go broke you go broke together y'all eating the same food together we were sitting there smiling eating those chicken nuggets yeah no like like literally literally the dollar menu yeah you know like there's no other better feeling than knowing that you have somebody to go through life with and they won't judge you not one bit you know so if you don't have that hard conversation you already entering on the wrong foot especially trying to be entrepreneurs we know this is a journey man yeah you go through ups and downs arguing because you understand money you have to be placed here when you know you really want to do this because you still have the balance of life yeah and most people know which good thing about me and my wife she'll help balance the life while i work for it because she knows i'm a forward worker i'm a forward thinker i'm gone you know and she'll have to pull me back like babe hey let's live a little bit let's enjoy life you know to the point where i started learning like you're right instead of just working so it has to be a yin and yang when it comes to this business thing have that hard conversation tell that person what you want as long as you know that it's selfless you want it together because this is the most things people want something solo versus saying hey let's find out what we want together yeah and let's see if that overpowers what we want solo and it should yeah that way you have a mutual vision like two people working towards one vision as opposed to one here you can kill the goal quicker yeah if the goal is financial freedom yeah right versus i just want to do this because i like doing this that's a hobby at that point but if the goal is financial freedom everything shuts off like okay that's what we do yeah you're on a mission as well come together yeah all right it's a puzzle man yeah puzzle play your role and play it well would you say play your role and play it well yeah i love that um my advice to couples starting off on this i believe i gave a young lady this advice she came into my dm she asked me about her relationship this was good with her current boyfriend she said she loved the relationship but she's nervous about going into business with him i told her to start off her relationship because she's already in it but to have an intimate conversation and away from the kids yeah away from the kids away from everybody else and let this person know hey i'm excited to see the person that you're going to grow into being in this relationship and he loves that but you also need to understand that people are gonna fall they're gonna trip they're gonna get upset they're gonna get mad but as long as they have you there with them like it's gonna be okay but you also have to give people time to grow and understand that they might not know how to express themselves in the moment that they have you guys might be in a creative process they might have grown you have grown but you guys don't know how to express how you guys have grown you have to stop and re-evaluate those moments and say hey this is a new year excuse me this is the new year i feel different do you feel different let's talk about these differences and see if we can continue to work together and keep evaluating and keep evaluating and that's how the process goes you i told my husband i said hey um in a couple years we're going to change we're going like totally different things i think we were like i'm 28 now i think we're like 24 he was 25 and i'm like we're getting married i want to know that we're still going to be cool when we get older like throughout this process so i'm asked you like what's new about you one day i'm just gonna come up to you and ask you and you have to be able to tell me because i might not know you anymore and so like it actually happens but you have to reevaluate and even in the business world when it comes down to doing business you have to stop and say hey um i understand you like this at this point in time or do you still like this because you can go on and on and on with somebody and that whole thought process can change and you wouldn't know and they'll give up they would have ended the whole relationship and you not know not knowing how to deal with this person because you didn't take the time out to re-evaluate to communicate yeah and communicate and last thing we had a guy come on he was like hey um i'm at the point with my wife where i'm ready to just take the kid and leave my wife because i want to do this i want to do this entrepreneur thing and she's not with me i said hey take your wife into this intimate setting let her know sit her down and let her know that this does not work without her you're keeps you keep saying you inclusion you and what you want to do she doesn't she's not going along with it because she doesn't feel involved you have to say hey this the i need this to work i need you here with me if you're not here with me nothing works you have to let that person know that they're critical to to the process and without that it won't work and without that involvement they won't be involved they're like hey you want to do that i don't want to do that because i don't feel like i'm involved and they keep pushing you off to the side and you guys grow a part in business but you have to let that person know i need you you need to be involved i need you by my side i need your thank peace i need your your mindset i need your push when i can't push let them know that they're critical in your life and that's how you go in a relationship in business yeah that's beautiful you guys got to write a book about that oh she already yeah she's working on her yeah now the last question i have here and then we play a quick game at the end which is pretty fun gotcha um and that's for people around the world watching or listening you know who might be moved by your story inspired by what you guys have done right both personally intimately and professionally um and that is you know what advice would you give people around the world who are looking for answers maybe they're trying to become successful maybe they're trying to make their dreams happen but maybe they're in a place where they're listening to this podcast or watching this episode at home maybe they're smoking a joint or they're drinking or they're you know they're just pondering what it is they want to do with their life and maybe they're not in a good point or maybe they kind of had a win and now they're down and they're kind of on that seesaw and they're looking for motivation inspiration but they're looking for answers on what it takes from somebody who's been on the other side what advice would you give to people who are looking for answers on the best advice you've learned for success in life and business got it man loaded question i know but very much needed man um you're there you're sitting there you're wondering what's next you know we did the same thing we always wonder what's next man we can't just be sitting here being stagnant we can't be sitting here and being another statistic on oh we just didn't make it we fell short we have to live off the government no it's a it's a possibility if it happened to us it can happen to you you know life can change in an instant things can happen in an instant you know like tomorrow can be different all you got to do is turn that chapter because this chapter might be shitty but that just might be the plot yeah the next chapter might be the millions which it happened for us in a short period of time because we changed that chapter because once we changed it everything changed you know we're not looking at what we are currently we're looking at who we're going to become i had to play for who i am now back then yeah you know i was like yo i might be a little damn you know a person out here getting in damn trouble all the time you know this ex-felon this person who didn't graduate you know but i could be this guy who makes more than people who did graduate i could be this guy who really helps people in a major way who can inspire millions i just got to go meet that guy you know and i always try to play it in like let's say if it's two different dimensions you know where you can go really visit your past self and say yo i did this because of you so i don't i don't look at i don't down myself for what i did because it made me who i am now you know and i said this was a teamwork i needed you you needed me you know now we're here because of all the sacrifice you gave same thing with anybody else who's sitting there saying yo i got kids man we had kids yo i was heavy out there in the streets i was as well you know yo we single mothers single fathers we were we was that as well you know pretty much everything that anybody else went through you know you lost people we lost people too you know but one thing we did was move forward man we can't get caught up in the the pain of things use that pain to fuel the engine to keep going you know what i'm saying to keep going to to move to let nothing stop you you know i'm highly competitive man i want to do better at everything i want to beat me yesterday every day i have to outdo myself i treat a month like a year we do it all the time we say yo one day just went by that's one month you know or just say something where if you really maximize every single month you can't say that you haven't lived you can't say that you haven't grown if you do everything better in this previous month than the next month you will grow and it will be tremendous because you just did more you know so no matter where you are in life you can start with little money like we did you know that was our way of finding the answers we needed as far as how are we going to take care of our children how can we take care of their children you know with us you know um we love medieval movies yeah you know to us our last name means the world yeah you know just like back in the day when they say yo i'm son of this person yeah you know and it meant something that last name meant something and our mission is to bring that back where whatever your last name is you know you're gonna be responsible for a whole new generation right that legacy has to be there so don't do nothing to dishonor the family so that means you will have to work so you can prove yourself worthy to have this last name and i believe if more families carry themselves like that like yo i'm not gonna embarrass myself i'm gonna work hard because my father is this my mother is this you know and i have this name you know we're working on family crest and everything on like the gate of our new home man like we really want to bring back that media fulfill we love those movies because of how they cared so much and was willing to bring honor you know i say that to say if we all just sit and really re really reevaluate life we're all the same we all had that chapter in our book some people turned it quicker some people had it easier you know but ultimately we all have the same 24 hours every last one of us you know just like you was able to become successful you know and the person you are today same thing with us we just turn our chapters a little quicker than most but that book ain't finished yet yeah it's my blog keep going yeah i feel like um most people need to stop like you said and reevaluate themselves and think about stop thinking about yourself but think about yourself and i say that to say this as in you have to think about yourself in the future if you're constantly in this bubble when you think about yourself in the moment when you're depressed and you're down and out you will never get up and keep going you have to think about you know what next week i might start a book next week i might meet somebody and join the band you have to imagine things that you could be doing versus today is this and today is that today you have to have imagination i tell people to sit down and meditate and learn how to listen to your own thoughts instead of having other people come in and interrupt your thoughts because now you're thinking about what this person said and you don't even know what you really enjoy in life because this person's like hey let's go get ice cream reality you're lactose intolerant you keep eating ice cream because this person enjoys it but you might actually just love fruit but you wouldn't know that because you don't sit down and take time for yourself and say hey i love fruit and it's the simple things like that over time compounded yeah yeah so if you yeah if you take the time to say okay well i'm not worried about today i'm gonna figure out what i like tomorrow i'm actually gonna get up and i'm gonna do it right say hey i have this hankering that hey i might actually like surfing i don't know how to serve i'm actually scared of water but i'm gonna take that chance to do it you might become a pro sword for one day you have to be able to say anything that i think of that i might enjoy i'm going to try it and if i do enjoy it i'm going to do more of it and just try to do more of the things that you love and until you'll keep moving you will keep moving because trying new things get you out of that bubble like as long as you love it do it and that's my thing we always had a saying like you're the yeah you got to remember that like we're individuals you're the you should tell yourself that all the time you're the i'm the even if you don't feel like it just say i'm the it'll instantly make you feel better and another thing is anxiety takes over people like i have really bad anxiety but like when i do stuff like this like i normally don't talk but when i get in front of anyone and you ask me to talk it's like why not yeah go for it and i'm like i'ma do it yeah i'ma do it and yeah i'm the i'ma do it nothing can stop me because they asked me to do it so i'ma do it right and why not but i feel like anxiety stops a lot of people from doing things and with me like my hands would normally be sweating pouring sweat right now i'd be clearing me all over i had to take my anxiety and turn it into a superpower like before you guys came my husband said are you nervous i said no and then i thought about it because he asked and then my hands started sweating and i'm like oh man when my hands sweat and i get all anxiety and all nervous this means something good is going to happen something big is going to happen so you have to learn to turn your anxiety into a superpower and say i feel it this is like my spider sense tingling and if i feel like this right now that means the next step i take will and tell be the best thing the best decision i can make so you have to be able to step over that anxiety and push past it you have to be able to dream past the moment that you're in figure out some outlandish thing that you might not ever do and do it and it'll take you so far in life it'll take you so far and realize it's possible yeah i realized it's possible yeah i love it i man i literally am out of questions i rarely am out of questions but that's good i mean the one thing i will say is that i'm really impressed by not only your guys's story not only about your guys chemistry but your guys's ability to still be sympathetic to what it's like to be on the other side of the fence exactly um you know because a lot of people listening sometimes can get disassociated because they feel oh what do they know they're millionaires they don't know the struggle i'm in the hustle but you know you're working at skechers making seven bucks an hour she you know she you know she has her child you have your child you guys are trying to figure it out together um your guys story is very relatable and so it's it's been a privilege to have you guys on um before we wrap up douglas has been incredibly inspiring right at the end of every episode we play a game called first things first right so the way the game works is we rifle off a word or phrase and then you guys just say the first word or phrase that comes to mind makes sense the only rule is that you can't repeat yourself twice okay so it's like a fun relation game okay so i'll say a word you just tell me the first word or phrase that comes to mind makes sense who wants to go first from you guys that's 10 and 10. so we'll see who wants to go first [Applause] i'll go first okay you ready sure all right first word keenan love second word love children money houses ko elixir building your failures my mom god love [Music] the most defining factor in like something that changed your life like what was the turning point in your life a major turning point is that a you know how to say a phrase or just one yeah anything you could tell a story anecdote anything keenan yeah that says it all yeah yeah the man with the black pants black and gold pants huh yeah um your future beaches school what you hope people get from this interview growth and the last one you ready what passion means to you and keenan in your guys life the first thing that popped in my head was peanut butter sandwich yeah eating the things that we love that's it just that moment when we're eating stuff that we love them moments yeah we're the most happiest eating crab yeah yeah beautiful all right keenan you ready for your ten let's go all right first one money love it uh your first million emotional olivia wow compassion the biggest mistake you ever made not doing the sooner uh the role god has played in your life in business father love everything like their present your wife my children my wife's happiness legacy your legacy you and you and olivia's legacy legends legends what you hope people get from listening to this story change your course skip to seven figures amazing need it need it get it tomorrow [Laughter] and the last one you ready yeah what it means to be one of the passionate few free man means everything you know just to be on here after this brother they've been around amazing people you know right before you came in i'm talking to my wife and i'm talking to my friend fresh i'm like yo are we worthy you know like that's how i think of thinking about people man you're doing something amazing you took your time out to build this amazing platform for people like us to get inspired and ah you know it's an honor it's an honor you know you mean as much to me as anybody along my journey because i credit some of my journey with to you you know just seeing people out there who's willing to take their time you know and give the information when nobody is you know i see you fighting the same fight i'm fighting you know and that's getting the information out there to the people showing them that it's possible to become one of the passion of you i love it and the final one bonus one is what passion means to you same question i asked olivia the role passion plays in your life in your business man um it means everything because we know if we still doing it um we're not going to do nothing that we don't love you know we love helping people change their life we love change we love seeing new things you know like we love going new places so the passion means everything because we won't do it without it we have turned down millions of dollars from other people based off of what they want us to do if my passion is not to promote whatever you have or my passion is not to do this or do that i'm not going to do it you know i'm saying i move off of god's time and what's best for my family i love it well thank you guys so much for bringing your passion to the show yes sir keenan olivia it's been a privilege thank you guys for tuning in and make sure to follow keenan and olivia in the description below you guys can check them out also check out their skip to seven figures program ko elixir anything you guys like i highly recommend you guys follow them and check out everything they have until next time live strong live with passion and remember if your dreams are going to happen it's up to you to make it so we'll see you guys next time thank you so much for enjoying this video and if you found this content valuable uplifting and inspiring to take your life and your business to the next level and have some exciting news for you because the passion if you academy officially launched our brand new on-demand training that you can access absolutely free at www.tpfacademy.com right there you'll learn the number one way to grow your personal brand or business brand online fast the same way i've learned from interviewing some of the most successful people on the planet right here on the show who've done exactly that so again don't forget to check it out wwe i promise you you'll be blown away and also don't forget there's three ways you can connect with me further number one you can text me absolutely free at the number on the screen right now and send me your most pressing life business or branding question and i'll get back to you as soon as i can number two if you'd like to be interviewed on the show you can actually apply right now in the description below and apply to share your incredible story brand or business right here with an audience of potentially millions of people the same way we've helped experts entrepreneurs and authors just like you and don't forget that opportunity comes with the ability to partner with us and help feed one million people through our partnership with feeding america again you can click the link in the description below titled interview application to find out more and last but not least number three if you'd like to get consulting from our team and work with you to help you grow your personal brand or business brand no matter what industry you're in we can do that by simply filling out the questionnaire and description below titled consulting application and if our team thinks that you'd be a great fit who knows you may just be invited to work with us to help you take your business to the next level all right that's it thank you so much for enjoying this video make sure to smash that subscribe button turn on post notifications so you never miss an episode and until next time live strong live with passion and i'll see you in the next inspiring video

Channel: OMAR ELATTAR & THE PASSIONATE FEW

Views: 56,580

Keywords: The Passionate Few, Omar Elattar, Keenan Williams, The Passionate Few Interview, Keenan Williams Interview, entrepreneur interview, motivation, skincare entrepreneur, how to make money online, how to sell skincare products, skincare ceo, omar elattar interview, how to sell online, how to start a business, how to sell online 2021, How to sell products, rags to riches, how to make money, how to make money online 2021, skin care, how to make money as a teenager, entrepreneur

Id: WjkwIUQHf5I

Length: 102min 40sec (6160 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 18 2021