Clinton Sparks & Eddie Wilson's BILLION Dollar Exit & The Business of Gaming

Clinton Sparks
Work with everybody from M to Rick Ross to two chains, ti, snoop Dogg, Ludacris, acon, Pitbull, Lady Gaga. Sold over 80 million records. I got into the gaming space, I was like, wow, I can really connect all these cultures into this world. So I helped bring one of those companies to a billion dollar IPO, then founded another esports organization and made that the fastest growing, most diverse and inclusive esports.org in the world. So the gaming space is actually eight times bigger than the frickin movie industry.

It's bigger than the movie and music industries combined. It's the fastest growing form of entertainment in the world.

Dan Fleyshman
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the money Mondays. I am here in RV Motorhome. We are in downtown Los Angeles, just teleported between four cities last four days, from Denver to LA to Orlando, back to LA, just to be in this RV with this gentleman who I've known for many years. He has built a career over decades in the music industry, and now he's diving into the gaming space. I'm gonna let him tell you all about it.

I'm gonna make sure that after you listen to this podcast, you go follow him on social, you check out his big project that he's been working on. And for him to get excited, it makes all of us excited because he's seen it all over the years. Working with household named celebrities, speaking at events, performing all over the planet, working with every major artist and everything between, from television, radio, live events, and everything in between. You're going to want to enjoy this episode. You're probably going to listen to it twice.

Because there's a lot of facts you're going to hear today from someone who's lived and breathed this industry and other industries around this industry to try to mix the culture with music, business and everything in between. Without further ado, please give a warm round of applause to mister Clinton Sparks. Yes, thank you. Is this in fact a special edition or do you say that to everybody that's here? Is it a little more special or.

All right, I guess there is more special. All right. Anything, anybody that's in this Rv is special. Yes. All right, got it.

So the way this works is, as you guys know, we keep this podcast under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes. The average commute to work is 45 minutes. So as you guys know, I like to make it really clear you're in for a less than 40 minutes episode. So make sure you listen to the whole thing. It's really important for us because you guys have helped us stay number one for 55 weeks in the entrepreneur category and top three to five in the business category because of our listen through rate.

So keep listening, sharing, commenting, liking, subscribing, all of those things help us keep this podcast up there to spread the message about the fact that money is not the root of all evil. And because this is special, and because. This is special, we can't forget that content is special, as you guys can see. And so it's important for you guys to understand that concept. Share this with your friends and family.

As you notice, we don't have ads here. I really want you guys to listen to this. Enjoy it. Spends a lot of money to make these things happen for you guys ad free. And so without further ado, can you give us the quick two minute bio so we can get straight to the money?

Sure. I am a Grammy nominated, multi platinum producer. Signed with a dj, sold over 80 million records. Work with everybody from M to Rick Ross to two chains, ti, snoop Dogg, Ludacris, acon, Pitbull, Lady Gaga. Built my first ecommerce website in the early two thousands.

Clinton Sparks
Made 5 million the first year. Built it to be the biggest mixtape site in the world. Helped conceive the biggest urban website in the world, Worldstar, hip hop. Built my own syndicated radio show around the world in 22 markets. I helped Eminem launch the Shade 45 channel.

I was Diddy's former dj. Played a big role in the marketing of Ciroc. I discovered and signed DJ Snake. I was a host on E. News for five years.

Changed the culture of that global network. Yeah, I don't want to keep going. You got more time. You got a full two minutes. We got a shot clock.

Yeah. So, you know, and then I got into the gaming space, you know, help converge all these cultures together, from music, sports, fashion, art, culture, bringing all the companies that I've built over the years. I built multiple multimillion dollar brands over the years. And when I got into the gaming space around 2016, I realized that this industry was built for what my brain was built for, because my brain's always been too big. For every industry I've been a part of.

My ideas were too big. People didn't understand it. When I got into the gaming space, I was like, wow, I can really connect all these cultures into this world. So helped bring one of those companies to a billion dollar IPO, then founded another esports organization and made that the fastest growing, most diverse and inclusive esports.org in the world. And now here we are today.

I tried to. There's a lot more. I try to condense as much as possible. You really made me big at the beginning. So.

Dan Fleyshman
So the gaming space is actually eight times bigger than the freaking movie industry. It's bigger than the movie and music industries combined. It's the fastest growing form of entertainment in the world. And it's funny how parents still look at it as a waste of time and they don't realize all the viable careers that exist within it, that colleges give scholarships out for it. In fact, 46% of scholarships go unclaimed because people don't even know that they exist.

Clinton Sparks
Studies show that gaming helps with depression, strategy, leadership, critical thinking. The future engineers are gamers and 48% of gamers are females. And the average age of gamers are 34 year olds now. So a lot of people look at it like parents say, ah, it's a waste of time. Go out and do something different, but in the same manner that you'll put your kid in little league or Pop Warner football.

You can do the same thing with gaming, but it doesn't take 15 years of dribbling a basketball or tons of money to get them to be successful. And you don't have to be a gamer to be in the business of gaming. I have a confession to make. When I was 13 years old, I became obsessed with video games. And I played in the blockbuster video game championship.

Dan Fleyshman
And I went there and I had to play Sonic the Hedgehog and NBA jam, and I had four minutes each. And that's the way they timed it. You had to get the highest score in four minutes. And so I played this song by Warren G and Nate Dogg called regulate. Regulate.

Yeah, because it was an exactly four minute song. Yeah. And so that's why I used my mental clock. That's why I know every word of that song and every tonality of that song, because I did it for. For a year straight.

I just listened to regulators to play this game. I went there and I whooped butt, and I won the San Diego blockbuster championship. But then I did not go to the finals cause my mom did not want me to go to Orlando, Florida. Right. Well, did you regulate?

Not that I'm bit or anything. Did you regulate your competition? I did. All right. That's why I won.

Clinton Sparks
So it all made sense. Shout out to Warren and Nate. All right, so you have all these careers, you know, you've lived a lot of lives, is the way I would put it. Right. From fashion, music, entertainment, television, et cetera.

Dan Fleyshman
How did you choose to either not continue on with these main categories to make this big jump into the video game space. Or you could have taken an easy route, right? You could go become the president of a label. You could go just start, take over a big brand. You could run one of these alcohol companies.

You could have done whatever you wanted. Why did you decide to dive in? I'm going to go into gaming. Well, why I got into gaming in particular. Well, there's two questions there.

Clinton Sparks
Like, what made me decide to jump around and do different things? I'll answer that second. The first reason I got into gaming is a buddy of mine called me one day when I was vice president of dash radio and said, hey, I need you to come to the office in Hollywood. We're going to do this new business. And I showed up, and at the time, it wasn't a business.

They didn't have a business model or any revenue drivers. They were just a bunch of popular kids online called Faze clan for trick shooting. So when we got there, we're going to turn this into a business. It's too many details to get into the whole thing, but so that friend of mine at the time called me and said, we want you to be a part of this. And then I sat there for, like, two or three days just to kind of look at the dynamics and understand the landscape, because at that time, I didn't understand gaming and esports either.

Obviously, I knew gaming from being a gamer and being a part of a bunch of games coming up, but I didn't know the business of it. I certainly didn't know esports was a thing. And after I sat there for a couple of days, I'm like, this is everything. I can connect everything to this industry. Cause it's so untapped.

And that was, you know, six, seven years ago, and it's still untapped, even though it's the fastest form of entertainment in the world, and it's projected to make over $500 billion by 2027. It's like it's still not even tapped into when it comes to culture, mainstream pop culture, fashion, media rights, deals, like all the things that, you know, I'm familiar with when it comes to hip hop or fashion or music or television, where you just kind of bring all these worlds together. Gaming still, it's really divided. You got esports and you got gaming. And for those that don't know, we're going to give you an illustration of the difference between esports and gaming.

Do we have artwork that we can throw in here? Okay. Esports is organized. Closed league games, that endemic hardcore gamers grind out like 10 hours a day to be picked on one of these teams that hopefully then get selected to be in one of the teams that are in a closed league, like League of Legends, Call of Duty. And you got to pay millions of dollars to be in that league.

So it's very specific and it's a very niche audience. Gaming is everything else, from candy Crush to Donkey Kong to street Fighter to fortnite to whatever you're doing casually with your friends that's not in an organized league. Gaming is where all the money is. Gaming is where all of the people are. Gaming is where all the opportunity is, right?

And like, nobody's really been focused on that part of the world. They all want to convert and get people involved. But if somebody like me, I come from the hood, you look at sports and music as a way to get out of the hood. Gaming is a third vertical that nobody's talking about and nobody recognizes. And I'll tell you, probably almost nobody even knows that esports is a thing from the hood or in the streets or even parents.

And they certainly don't know how to get money or how to make money within that space. So some games over the years, basketball games in particular, try to bring music in, right? NBA jam and some of those type of games. Madden started bringing in, hip hop, grand theft auto started bringing in music. Some games started bringing in, of course.

Dan Fleyshman
Are you going to be bringing the music culture into the gaming culture? Or are you going to hyper focus on just gaming? No, all of it. The whole lifestyle around it. A kid that, let's say an offset, he games, but he's also into fashion, he's also into music, he's also into art.

Clinton Sparks
There's all of these worlds that can be converged together, but there's no authentic way that anybody's been able to figure out how to crack that code and bring it all in. It's like, usually you got kind of the gaming world. And this applies to, like, business, too. Even the financial world or corporate world, which you and I both know. Typically you have these people that know this over here, and they're good at business or they're good at the gaming industry, but they don't know shit about culture or community or the hood or like, the psychology or the mentality of the average regular person in pop culture.

And it's very rare that there's something that connects these two. All of my businesses have been built off the understanding of Wall street and the street and understanding what they don't understand about each other, how to communicate, and how to translate. So every company that I've ever built has been built off the understanding and the knowledge of what people need, what they need to feel, and how to connect these things authentically. And that's what I started doing with Faze Clan, then I did it with Exet, and then I'm going to continue to do it with my next company, which we won't talk about here, but I am building the world's most exciting, culturally impacting entertainment empire in the world. So on the money Mondays, we talk about three core topics.

Dan Fleyshman
How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity. You've done all three of those topics. So let's go step by step on the make money side. Someone wants to become a dj, a rapper, a producer, et cetera. How can they make money in the beginning stages when they're first getting started?

Clinton Sparks
Focus on being great. Most people are focused on getting the money, and I think once they get the money, that that now qualifies them for being great. They define themselves as being great because they got the money and they got all the things that come with money. What I found early in my career is if you focus on becoming great, the money chases great. So if you focus on that, the fame and the money becomes a byproduct of you just building something great.

So whether it's your own personal brand or whether you're building another brand, if you focus on. And by the way, great isn't just like your talent itself. It's how you communicate, how you network, how you treat people, how you listen. It's all around what makes somebody or something great. And once you do that, you know you're an investor in over 40 companies.

And one of the things you look at, right, what do you look at? The leadership, the team, the people involved, do you believe them? Are they gonna stick it out? Are they gonna be able to resolve problems? Are they gonna be a problem for you?

Are you gonna get your money back? Right? So, and the same thing applies. If you just use that as the guideline of getting to the money, then the money will come to you. You won't even have to chase it.

Cause you just focus on building great. So let's say someone out there right now is listening, and they're a DJ, and they got a bit of fame. Now they got their 1st 20,000 followers. Now they're 30,000. Now they're 50,000 followers starting to get their swag.

Dan Fleyshman
Boom. They got booked at a big place, and now they got 100,000 followers. How do they decide what they should charge? How do they figure out what their rate is? Well, I'm kind of almost the wrong person to do that because I never gauge according to anybody else, but I guess what the average person would do is just look at the market, see what other people kind of in their range.

Clinton Sparks
You know, go to a booking agency that's going to be able to negotiate for you. But really, I've always subscribed to the theory of what is it that I need for what I need to do, what is it that I want, or what do I feel that I deserve? And I didn't care what the market was. I don't even care if I got half of what other people got. If that's what I determined I need, then that's all I aimed for.

I didn't compare to what somebody else was getting. I think that hinders a lot of people from moving forward too, because they'll look at this and they'll lose opportunities. Cause like, well, I deserve this because that's what they got. But it's like you don't know who they know what they went through. You can't compare those two things.

Just decide. And this goes, even goes for happiness. Whether you're going after money or happiness. Decide what it is that you need or what will make you happy. You.

Not what somebody else says. Well, that should make you happy or what you think will make you happy. Because we all fall victim to what we think will make us happy. More money, a better body, hotter girl, faster car. Then we get there.

And you know, you can't fool yourself by thinking that if you make your dreams a reality, that you've now escaped your nightmares, right? So when you think that these are the things that will make you happy, and you get there and you're still not happy, that's because you didn't do it the right way. You had to decide what truly would make you happy, right? So to answer your point just directly about the dj, just figure out what it is that you need to do, what you do for a living, what do you think you deserve? What's the value of what you do?

And of course, you can gauge a little bit by what the market says, but that doesn't mean you have to beat someone or compete with somebody or get what somebody else is getting. If you just get what you're needing, then that should be the beginning of that's part of being great, just getting what you need so that you can continue to grow and build more. Great to get even more without even having to chase it. Why do you think musicians, athletes, entertainers, celebrities, why do you think that some percentage of them have gone bankrupt after they end their careers? Well, you and I have both been around long enough to see athletes, influencers, rappers come and go.

It's funny, I can't tell you how many times I sit in a meeting with somebody to whether manage them or work with them or whatever it is, and I can tell after like five minutes, like, they won't even be around next year. And it's just the mentality of even what they're saying to me. The questions they're asking, how they're listening, what they're listening to, what their body language is responding to for what I say is a really good determine of who they are and what they're going to be. And most, I mean, the simple answer is because they weren't educated enough, they didn't take the time to care about their own career or their future to understand what they need to know, right? And then when they get that money, who they need to have around them and what they should do with it.

Most people are just here for the bag, you know what I'm saying? The bag comes and goes, you know what I mean? And that's the biggest thing I see. People say, I can't tell you how many people I put in positions. Same with you.

I know you, you need to do this. And here's why. You'll give them the whole scientific reason why you should do that. You'll give them step by step plays. You'll tell them why.

If you don't do this, here's what's gonna happen. And like, they just don't listen for whatever reason. And then a year or two later, I should have listened to you, or they come asking you for the advice you already gave them. Like, bro, I moved on, man. Like, I gave you a lot of time.

So it's one of the greatest skills that you possess that most people don't use. And we're all born with the ability to do this, but not many of us do. It is listen. Just shut the fuck up and listen, right? And most people don't shut up and listen.

They think they have the answers, or they go and they listen to the wrong places from the wrong people, which are usually the people around them. Even when it's like, yo, what do you think about this music? And your boys, like, yo, this is the shit. Of course your fucking boys are gonna say, that right? Play to some people that don't know you, that want to tell you it sucks.

Dan Fleyshman
Go to a high school. High school. That's when you know if you're gonna pop off, right? Same with money. Like, I know we always hear this, but, like, you're gonna go ask fucking your boys.

Clinton Sparks
Like, yo, what do you think I should do? They don't know shit about business. No disrespect to your boys or money, but it's time for you to level up. Cause once you level up, guess what you get to do? Help your boys level up, right?

But otherwise, you're all just going to sit there and just, like, start blaming other people or making excuses of why it didn't work when you just didn't shut the fuck up and listen. All right, so we talked a bit about the making money side. Let's talk about investing. We also talked about shutting the fuck up. It's important.

And listening. It's important. So that's one of my best posts of all time, is called shut up and listen. Because if you're on a date and you shut up, she's going to want to go another date with you because she's going to think you're caring. You care about the person.

Dan Fleyshman
You want your employees to like you more. Shut up and listen to them. You want your boss to like you more. Shut up and listen. You want your kids to love you more.

Shut up and listen. And guess what the byproduct of that is? You become smarter, stronger, better able to lead. Because now you know what people need to feel because you listened to. You want to know how to treat your girl better?

Clinton Sparks
Listen to what girls hate about men, right? You want to know how to be a better employee? Listen to what bosses hate about their employees. All the answers are there. You keep looking in the wrong places for answers.

The answers are right in front of your face if you shut up and listen, man. All right, on the investing side, how do we inspire? This is my reason for speaking at events and reason for doing everything I'm doing with this podcast. How do we get more people to finally start making investments, even if it's just a little bit at a time. Educating them, making them understand that once Robinhood came around and stuff like that, you had people that never even imagined that investing was something they could do or they had access to have the possibilities to invest.

You know, now people aren't. We're going through the stage now where the people, most people that didn't even know, they thought it was just like rich corporate people to invest. It wasn't even. It was foreign to them. We're going through a stage now where it's now accessible to the people that didn't even realize it was something they could do to.

Now you're going to go through this of everyone just using key phrases in words because they're learning a little bit here and there. So they're acting like they're entrepreneurs and they're seasoned investors. And a real investor knows, like, all right, you don't really know what you're talking about, but at least you're trying to learn, right? And then what's going to happen is those people are going to start investing, losing, and then be forced to have to start learning and educating after they start blaming and accusing other people for having the game up against them, right? So I think the way to get people to invest is starting to invest in themselves.

And if you invest in yourself and you start seeing the results, positive results of what you did by investing in yourself, then you'll start saying, okay, well, here's something else that I believe in. Like, I believed in myself. Here's another thing, though. A lot of people say, invest in yourself, and we all hear the kind, you got to invest in yourself. If you don't invest, why would anybody else, right?

But, like, sometimes you're a fucking bad investment man. And you also that. But that's going back to being great, understanding if you're the thing that you should be investing in, right? Maybe it's your boy, maybe it's somebody else. Maybe if you.

And I'm just going to use music, since you brought that up, maybe like you and your four boys all rap, right? And you selfishly are thinking, well, I got to be the one. Maybe your boy's better than you and has better chances of breaking off than you do. You should invest in him. And then you guys can start, turn around and reinvest in you.

That's just like any business. You get the business going, it's working. You just reinvest in it. So I think a lot of people don't understand those dynamics. I'll tell you, there's a really famous a list rapper, I won't say who, that I got to invest in a company one time.

And the day after he invested, he called me, goes, okay, what happens next? Right? Because, like, he's thinking, like, okay, when do I get a return on this investment, right? And I had to, like, go and break it down in, you know, street terminology to make them understand how they're separate but they line up. If you take these and apply it to this, you'll start realizing, and they're kind of.

Everything in life is the same. Just a couple little different rules, different jargon, but everything's the same. Once you understand the concept of one successful thing, you can kind of pretty much apply it to any business, as you know, from all the businesses you've invested in. So I think having the ability to understand what the smart things is to invest in and the ability to do that is by doing the research. And what?

Shutting up and listening, when you listen to the people that know what they're talking about, then you can start gaining that knowledge, filtering at what works for you. Because what might work for Dan might not work for Clinton. So you might give me advice. Oh, there's some good tips in there, but some of that shit wouldn't work for me. Right.

And I think that's why a lot of people, they just go. Even people that go to conferences or read books and watch, like a, you know, a thought leader online, I got to do it exactly like he said. No, dude. Like, you gotta figure out. You gotta take the parts of what he said and apply it to what would make sense for you and how you feel.

You would be able to apply it to how you operate or where your skill sets are. The billionaires and zillionaires that I've met, don't. You met zillionaires? They don't talk much. They just ask questions all the time.

Dan Fleyshman
They just ask me questions all the time. You've met zillionaires? Absolutely. Well, that's why this show's special. Cause that's a big announcement.

Clinton Sparks
Yeah, that's definitely Dan Flush. No, zillionaires, guys. Actual zillionaires. Is zillionaire a real term? Well, what does that just mean?

So much money we can't account it. It's that they have multiple billions, and I don't know what that billion number is. And so they have zillions, and it's the actual number they have is zillions. And during those times, it's happened a lot. All they do is ask questions.

Dan Fleyshman
I actually don't remember them saying much besides asking me, how do you do this? Why do you do that? Why do you do this? Well, that's interesting. How do you do this?

It's because if you're a zillionaire and you learn something that helps you make one little tiny percent better to save 1% or make 1%. Well, what's 1% of a zillion. A lot. Like a lot a lot, right? That's your math.

Clinton Sparks
You have to tell us what 1% is. It's so big, I can't even explain how much it is. But, Dan, how big is it? It's so big. So let's say it's a billion, okay?

Dan Fleyshman
If you make 1% or save 1%, that's $10 million, but not once it compounds forever, right? If I can teach you something to save or make 1%, it doesn't matter if you make 100 grand, a million, 10 million, a billion, or a zillion saving 1%, or making 1% compounds forever, right? It changes the knowledge. Your knowledge compounds. So if you're someone that makes 100 grand a year, and now you make 120, then 160, then 200, etcetera, but you learn something from Clinton that saves you 1% a year in taxes, that changes your life forever, and then every year, it makes it more and more and more impactful.

That's the thing, is people don't realize, is you're in a situation where if you shut up and listen and you can learn how to save or make 1% a year, you literally change the whole trajectory of your life. Are we just going to skate right over that magical line of compounding knowledge? That was pretty impacting. I'll give you another example. Let's say you're on a big, humongous cruise ship, a zillion dollar cruise ship.

Clinton Sparks
There's only one guy there. It's that guy, you know? And on this cruise ship is you, the zillion dollar guy, and it's going straight. If it's off by even one little percent, what happens? Inevitably, you go totally off course.

Dan Fleyshman
You end up in Antarctica. Right? You end up in Mars. Like, you end up somewhere completely off base. This zillionaire's boat goes to Mars.

Clinton Sparks
Come on, Tan. I gotta learn more about this guy, man. If you just have 1% off, it changes the entire trajectory of your life. And so, why does that matter? You need to shut up and listen.

Dan Fleyshman
You need to ask real questions. You need to research online, because every bit of information about how to do anything on the planet now is online, right? I can learn how to open a bowling alley, a cemetery, a mortuary, a hair salon, a barber shop, anything between on YouTube videos. Right this second. Right.

By the time you get home, I could figure out how to open up a frickin aquarium. Yeah. If you don't know how to do something, it's really just because you're a donkey that doesn't want to take the time to listen to how to do it. You want somebody to do it for you. And that's where I realize most of the time, people are just like, yeah, but I don't know how to do it.

Clinton Sparks
No, no, you can go learn how to do it. You just don't want to do it. Guess how much Google is? $0. Guess how much YouTube is?

Dan Fleyshman
$0. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. So much free knowledge, man. So much free. Zero, zero.

It's free. The biggest commodity is free knowledge. You're chasing the wrong shit, man. The knowledge compounds, man. All right, so our third and final topic is about giving money away to charity.

Why should musicians and artists incorporate charity into their personal brands? Well, I'll give you two reasons. I'll give you the. The beautiful reason, and then I'll give you the business reason. So the beautiful reason is because it's always good.

Clinton Sparks
Like, me in particular. Like, my whole goal in life is to make the world a better place. How do you make the world a better place? It's by making people better, even if it's one person at a time. So, for instance, like, I had a whole course that I created a 65 video course of how to win big in the music business, and I literally give it away for free on YouTube.

I don't want your money. I want your success, because I know that your success breeds happiness, and I know happiness breeds a better world. And that's what I care about the most. So if you're going to. If you want why you should get involved with charities?

Because it's your job and it's our duty as human beings and as people that are in blessed situations or that are able to level up or figure things out that other people have not figured out yet to give back. Whether it's given to a cancer research, whether it's given to a boys and girls club, you know, I give to St. Jude's a lot. And, you know, there's other things. I want to be honest, man.

One of the reasons I care about being successful, I want to be so successful that all I do is just give my money away and go help people. That's all I care about. I just. I really want to be so rich. I don't need to have.

I'm fine how I am. I don't need fancy. You'll never see me online flexing, because flexing to me is being a good dad. Flexing to me is helping other people. Flexing to me is showing up in a time of need not a watch, not a.

You know what I mean? So I think the value in that is, one, that keeps you humble. Two, it helps make the world better, and it makes people appreciate your success and want to cheer for you and want to root you on because you are successful, and they want to keep supporting you because, look, this guy's giving back and he's doing good, so let's keep supporting him. So that's on a personal level, on a business level, all the Fortune 500 companies, they all have social good departments that need to deploy hundreds of millions of dollars. Most people don't know that.

Dan Fleyshman
Right? And they actually don't even spend a lot because there's not enough people that are doing enough good for them to say, here's $50 million a put towards that. So from a business perspective, when you're genuinely out here doing it. Now, I'm not saying do this as a tactic to get money, when you are genuinely recognized as someone that cares and does stuff, and there's receipts to show that you care. The business side of it is it opens up a whole nother door of cash to come into your business to help do the good things that you are able to do now that you're in a good position.

Last question. Clinton sparks becomes a zillionaire, right? And hopefully you live to 120 years old. 140 years old. Who knows of modern medicine out there?

This is the question I ask every single guest, and I've never had the same answer, and I'm not going to get the same answer today. Well, then I'll tell you right now, you just identified this show is not special. Cause you ask the same question on every show. But that's okay. I don't need to be snapped.

Clinton sparks. I've never asked anybody if they'll be a zillionaire. This is the first time I've ever asked them. Let me be clear about that, okay? I've never asked anybody, Dan, you gotta.

Clinton Sparks
Help me become a zillionaire. I am. All right, when you become a zillionaire or not. If. When you become a zillionaire, how much or what percentage do you leave to your kids?

I would have.

It's funny, me and my wife just had an argument yesterday. Not an argument, but a debate about. Cause she would like if the company I'm working on now, that is, you know, hopefully be a multi billion dollar company. But see, I don't even need that. If I did that, I wouldn't even have enough to give to my kids because I give it away.

But our debate was, she still feels like, no, our kids need to still grow up normal. They still need to have regular jobs. They need to do that. I go, why would they go through the whole rigmarole to just hopefully try to get to the end goal that everybody goes through that rigmarole to get to if I've already did that and got them to the end? And she's like, no, because then they'll grow up and be spoiled brats and da da da.

It's like, you don't know that there's people that grow up that you give them everything and they're assholes. And some of the greatest people in the world, you see that? And there's people that grow up broken that are assholes or the greatest people in the world. So there's no way to tell. It really depends on the parenting and the environment, how you teach them.

I think that I would. I would give them, I don't know if there's a number. I think I'd first want to try to identify how much zillions really is that say I have zillions now. I don't know how much this really is. I need a CPA or somebody to really break this down for me.

Fucking Dan, do you know a guy? Right? And then. I'm glad you asked that. And then I don't know, man.

I don't know what the number is. I would just. I'd give them enough that they never have to worry again. I know that for sure. I don't know what number that is.

Dan Fleyshman
Is it a zillion? No. Cause I only have one zillion. That means I'd give them all my money. Oh, when I die.

Yeah. Oh, of course. I'm leaving all my money, all of it, to them. Yeah. Because while I was alive, I already two things.

I can feel the answers coming here. I'd give all. Okay, ready? And edit. I would give, not editing, nothing, by.

Clinton Sparks
The way, all of my money to my kids, because I would have already taught them the mentality and the importance of helping and giving to other people. So I, while I was alive, would have already been doing that. And by an example, they would have seen what I'm doing, and there would be a contingency in that trust, that will of them getting that money that I expect you to carry on the legacy of our family by helping other people and supporting the things that I already set up to help other people. And I think that I'm a pretty good dad, I would say, and I think that my kids would learn and understand that not only is this important to me, it's important to the world, and it's important for you, for your happiness and being a decent human being to continue to do this as well. So I trust in my fatherhood that they do the right thing.

Dan Fleyshman
I told you guys it was a special episode. Even though he was joking with me at the beginning. Make sure to follow Clinton sparks across social media. Check him out. And he's going to announce at some point what is his multi zillion dollar company in the gaming industry that he's working on.

But as always, we have just one favor to ask at the end. Please talk about with your friends, family followers about money. Have these discussions talk about loans, credit, finance, rent, borrowing money, all the things that are real life situations around your friends, family, and everyone in between. And talk about the money Mondays. Spread it to your friends so we can keep getting this message out there that it's not rude to talk about money.

You want to add something? Can I add on to that? Heck yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot of people that want to sound smarter than they are, right?

Clinton Sparks
So one, they either are afraid to ask people questions, or two, don't take the time to learn the things that they need to learn to level up their intelligence. I personally, like, if I hear a word, like if I hear you say something and I don't know one, I'm not too shy to say, hey, what did that word mean? Or when you explain that, what is that? Can you explain that to me? Again, going back to listening.

But also, if you are, if you do have an ego that makes you feel less than. Especially, like, again, when you grow up in the streets, it's hard to let. To be vulnerable or to tell somebody, I don't know anything. And everybody tries to act like they know more. Cause they know one bigger word than the other person, right?

And it's just kind of like, how about we all sit down, like, what the fuck does that mean that we just heard them say on shark tank? Or what did they mean when they meant this? And like, if you wanna be a real fucking crew, then one of you guys level up and go get that information. Come back and tell the rest of your fucking crew, hey, remember that shit that we went to that meeting with the record label and they were saying some shit, we didn't know what they were talking about? Well, I went and did some research, studied on it, and I had a call with, you know, what's that fucking legal number?

You can call and get answers from lawyers online, whatever it's called. What is it called? Legal zoom or something, whatever. And I got some information. Here's what it means.

They were trying to fuck us. Or here's what it means. It's actually in our favor. And we were kind of being idiots and looking like we don't know what we're talking about by saying no. Right?

And that, again, goes to your point. Just fucking listen, man. Stop acting like you know you don't know what you don't know, and you'll never know if you don't go. Try to learn from somebody who does know, you know? So I already know the title of this episode.

Dan Fleyshman
It's gonna be called shut up and listen to Clinton Sparks. We'll see you guys next Monday. Get familiar.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Money Mondays podcast. We are sitting here in a parking lot in downtown Los Angeles. Well, right inside this building behind us, there's over 600 entrepreneurs. Inside of the money is masterclass. Our guest today has four different levels of masterminds.

He owns the largest business tour in America. He's got over 4000 apartments. He sold a company for around 1 billion. Not a million, $1 billion. And so I don't want to take up too much time because it'll take me a long time to give him the introduction.

So we're gonna do a quick, fast bio so we can get straight to the money. But I want you to give a warm round of applause, wherever you are in the world, to mister Eddie Wilson. Thanks so much. All right, Eddie. So normally we do a two minute bio.

Can you give us the 1 minute bio? Because we're going to do a fast episode for you guys. This is going to be a 20 minutes episode. We've had eddie on before. You're going to have Eddie on multiple times in the future because we are working on a bunch of different things together.

We got the aspired tour. We got all these fun things. So, Eddie, give us the fast bio. We'll get straight to the money. Fast by is, I really exist in three areas.

Eddie Wilson
I'm a corporate leader. We run about 27 different companies. Right now. I'm an investor with private equity, real estate, all the above and then an altruist. I like to give it all away.

Clinton Sparks
Once I make it. So I want to make it and give it all away. All right, so that leads me to my first question, how and why? Which normally, this is my last question I'm going to ask at the beginning. How and why should people give money to charity?

Dan Fleyshman
But the caveat is, why should they do it? If they have a business or a brand, why should they be involved in charity as a business or a brand? Well, first of all, we really should be considering the fact that there are a lot of people around the world that can't make impact on their own lives. And we can make a difference if we will get motivated by it. Our business should be a tool more than just to create wealth for us or for our family or for legacy.

Eddie Wilson
It should be a tool to help other people. We've got an amazing opportunity as we live in this amazing country to build these businesses and have these opportunities. Opportunities. And really, you know, you get to the end of your life and another car or another house or another boat is not going to give you fulfillment. But at the end of the day, if you can help somebody else take their next step forward, it's very, very fulfilling.

And so there's a lot of other benefits to it. You know, you get increased opportunities in the marketplace by providing charities and all that type of stuff. I mean, there's a lot of great marketing, you know, things. But at the end, it's, it's about helping people. You know, like, our business is an amazing tool to help people and why wouldn't we do that?

Dan Fleyshman
So your charity is called impact others. Can you explain what is it? How is it, what do you do? What's the main concept behind impact others? Yeah, impact others exist in four areas.

Eddie Wilson
Number one, we have feeding centers and education centers for children around the world. So many children, they're malnourished, don't have somebody to help them out. And we start there. We have orphanages where then children that don't have parents, we actually house them. We also dig clean water wells all over the world, provide clean water.

And then lastly, we build sustainable businesses. I believe that business should be a tool for the resource of helping others. And so as we build these feeding centers, orphanages dig wells, then we'll build a small business in that area. So don't always have to give capital to that area so it can sustain itself. You know, at some point you get to the end of your own resources, you realize you have to create more to help more people.

And so it's also very difficult to repatriate money, get money back in the US. So I build businesses overseas. They support the ecosystem that I'm building there. Feed and educate children, provide clean water, aspire tourists. I mentioned aspire tour a couple of times last year.

Dan Fleyshman
You and Andrew Cortle started it. I stepped in the summer around June 2023 and now it has just gone bunkers, right? 3000, 4000 people per month sometimes. Last time we did in ten day period. And upcoming we've got May 17 in Miami, June 5 in Orlando and July 20 at Madison Square Garden.

Yeah, which we were just joking like, oh, next year we should do Madison Square Garden. And then Andrew obviously, he's like oh, let's go away. Guess what guys? He said, he said we should do Madison Square Garden in July. I said, why?

Eddie Wilson
He said it's because my birthday. And I was like, oh, I should just rent Madison Square Garden because it's your birthday. And so he said, yeah. He said, I mean you don't think we could fill six or 7000 seats? And I was like, well, I think we can.

He's like well let's try it. So here we go. It's his birthday so let's do it. Why not? Happy birthday, Andrew.

Dan Fleyshman
So tell us about aspired tour. How is it? There's lots of business conferences out there in the world. Why is this becoming the biggest business tour in the country? Why is it working?

Why does it feel like a rock concert? Walk us through it. You know, it is very, very unique and you've brought a lot of the sizzle to the actual experience and it has become more of a rock concert experience for people. But there's a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs that are out there in the country and they just don't know what the next step is. And so we try to provide them pathways for the next step.

Eddie Wilson
So we provide them ways to find capital. We find, help them grow their business. We bring in real estate opportunities. But in the end, the people that we bring in are transparent entrepreneurs themselves. The reason we ask people like Mark Cuban or, you know, Marcus Lemonis is because they're, they're transparent.

They will show them what they're doing and then they'll tell them the way that they got there. And that's really important. It's not about the flash of just bringing a celebrity on stage, it's ABout bringing a celebrity that actually will show them. Here are the steps I took so that the people in the audience can also take similar steps. What is the goal for aspirate tour?

Dan Fleyshman
What would you like to see Happen? DOes that lead to impact others? DOes that lead to other things? 100%. I mean, it really was just to be the world's largest business tour.

Eddie Wilson
So we got there. So I guess it's time for the next step. But yeah, we lead off every aspire tour with the concept of impact others. Every morning we start off, we talk about, hey, if we can help you take the next step in your pathway and your journey, commit that we're going to ultimately give that to someone else, that it's not just going to be spent on greed or pursuit of our own passions or desires, but we're also going to turn around and make an impact on someone else's life. So we start the day with that.

We present opportunities throughout Aspire tour to help, you know, orphanages in Nigeria or free slaves in Pakistan. So it very much is the center of it. And then, you know, the Aspire tour is really about creating a movement, trying to create a community of people that have the same passions but want to go help others, you know, when they find their success. So you also have masterminds, right? You have multiple levels of masterminds.

Dan Fleyshman
The money is mastermind. We have the 100 million mastermind. All these things in between there, 15,000, 30,000, 50,000 for chairman's club, $100,000. Why should people be involved in masterminds? Why should they invest in themselves?

To be, you've got 1100 members. Why be in those worlds? Why be in those rooms? Yeah, it's, I think one of the hardest things to find are people with, like, mind. If you look about, you know, your community, where you spend your time, who are the people that speak and talk like you, that want to go change the world, who want to make massive impact.

Eddie Wilson
And so masterminds are a great place to find that community. I don't know about you, but I. I don't enjoy dinner parties because no one speaks about business. I don't, you know, I struggle to fit in at church. I struggle to fit in everywhere.

But then I go to a mastermind, it's a bunch of me running around, which is incredible, you know, and it's like, and then it's like you just feel like it's hard home. It's your community, it's your tribe. It's always been said that, you know, if you look back in your life, the greatest, you know, kind of jumps in your life are always tied to something you've learned or somebody you've met. And I look back on my life, the companies I've sold, the exits I've had, the successes I've had. It's always tied to something I learned or some person I met.

And so why not architect that by going to a mastermind and intentionally learning more in the specific area that you're, you know, interested in and meet the people that are already doing it. So you also have something called Empire. Can you walk us through what is Empire? Why are there over 3000 businesses using it? Yeah.

Empire is an operating system. I'm a business operator myself. I love running businesses. I've ran over 125 companies. I've invested in over 85 of them passively.

I'm excited about business growth and business operations, but what I realized is there was very little out there to try to teach me or help me get from a very small startup all the way to a billion dollar business. There's a lot of systems out there that will teach you how to get 10 million or 15 million. But I at the same time had 30 companies, and one of the companies was a small little tech firm that was making no money. And then I had a couple hundred million dollar insurance company. And so I had to find a way to operate them all simultaneously with the same language, the same constructs, the same measurements.

And I built that and then sold 86 or sold 76 of the 86 companies in one year in 2019 for about 1.2 billion. And when I did that, I still had the tool empire. I was just using it for my business. I wasn't, it wasn't a product that went out to the marketplace. And so during COVID we were sitting there and trying to find stuff to do, and one of my operators said, what if we actually, like, he said, what are you going to do in the next two or three years?

So as soon as people start doing stuff again, I'm going to start buying businesses again. And let's do it again. He said, let's systemize it that way. Next time we go out, we just get super fast at this. So we built the curriculum during COVID specific because I specific to me because I was going to go buy another hundred businesses again.

And then I got involved with a few people like Andrew and others, and they were like, you know, why don't you teach that to other people? And so we did now 3200 businesses later. You know, it's just everybody's using empire and we've got a global outreach, and it's become very, very successful because it can take someone through all the phases of business, from startup all the way to, I want to sell my business through scale and everything and help them navigate those pathways. So when someone goes to a live event like Aspire Tour, what should they be doing while they're there? Because what I've seen is sometimes people go to events and they're on the phones, you know, they're off in the corner and they're missing out on the experience of networking and learning and listening, etcetera.

Dan Fleyshman
What would you recommend to someone that is going to a live event? What should they do in that experience? You know, we get very few days in our lifetime where something massive and impactful is going to happen. Well, we have created it. We have curated this experience where we know something massive and impactful is going to happen.

Eddie Wilson
We're going to grab their emotions, we're going to give them knowledge, we're going to give them information, we're going to give them exposure to things they've never thought of before. We've created it. And it is frustrating to watch someone come into an event and sit there on their phone or try to do business all day long, not pay attention to the people around them. You know, it's like we have created amazing experience and the people around you are desiring to go the same direction. You should be networking, you should.

If your phone's out, it should be taking notes about what you're learning. It should be about making plans for the future. It should be about absorbing. You know, I believe that it's so important to find time in our life to absorb. You know, it's like often us people that lead and we have a bunch of people around us all the time.

It's. We're always giving, giving, giving. We have to find time to, you know, take in. And I think that's time to take in. It's time to absorb.

It's time to let people feed into us and then connect. I think being able to absorb that information and connecting with others in a like state is very, very impactful. So you get approached a lot about investing in companies. A lot. Like a lot, a lot.

Dan Fleyshman
How do you determine what you're looking for? Or more importantly, what can someone do? What can an entrepreneur do to stand out? Yeah, you know, if you look at my tracker versus track record versus, you know, everyone else's track record, the average VC firm has got, you know, an eight to 10% success rate. If you look at my track record, I'm over 93% for the companies I've invested in succeeding at what we intentionally set out to do.

Eddie Wilson
The reason is because how we look at deals, I don't invest. I'm not an emotional investor. I don't invest in a product because I like it. I invest in a company or a product because it has a track record, it has a good operator. I always invest in the actual jockey, not the horse.

I want to know who's running it, who's on the board, who's on the cap table, who's involved? And then do they have a track record? I rarely get into pre revenue deals. I like deals that have capital, have some money behind it, have a little bit of track record, and then I can actually, like, jump start it or throw some gas on the fire. I like people.

I don't mind distressed money businesses. I don't like distressed product or people businesses. You know, it's like, I think money is the thing that everyone struggles with. But if I can find somebody that has good people and the product is solid, we can take it from there. All right, we got six more minutes left because we're keeping this short for you guys.

Dan Fleyshman
Obviously, we'll have Eddie back multiple times. So when someone comes to you and they do stand out, they're an entrepreneur. They stood out. They're doing $7 million in sales. They got a business.

How do you decide, even when they stand out, if you're going to make the leap, if you're actually going to get married, basically because you're going to be investing usually for three years, five years, seven years, who knows how long, right? You know, one of the greatest attributes of a young entrepreneur who's looking for an investment is pliability. You know, sometimes when you get to six or 7 million, you think you know it all, and they have no clue what it takes to go from 7 million to a billion. They've never been there and most people haven't. And so usually, even if the product is great, it makes sense.

Eddie Wilson
There's a great Runway. But if they are not pliable and willing to change, I oftentimes won't take the deal. I need to know that they are willing to actually listen to what we have to say. Use systems like the empire operating system. Allow me to make the right introductions, or you to make the right introductions.

It's like there's so much that we can provide for them. And if they have a one dimensional mindset on how they're going to run this business, I oftentimes won't take the leap because they're not pliable. All right, this is a question I ask every single time. I may have asked you this before, but I've never gotten the same answer. So I'm going to ask you this one in a different format.

Okay. Eddie Wilson, you are going to be a multi billionaire or more because you're going to be deploying capital as you keep having all these exits. And you might go from 4000 apartments to 8000 to 10,000. Who knows what happens with your real estate portfolio in 50 years, 80 years, 100 years, God willing, with modern technology, you live to 150 years old. Eddie Wilson, with your multiple billions of dollars, what percentage do you leave to your children when you pass?

You know, I get asked that a lot. And for me, I believe it's my responsibility and job to set them up to succeed themselves. And I think one of the greatest detriments that I can do is leave them a bunch of cash. I need to give them knowledge today to earn it, not cash tomorrow to, you know, to basically use it. And so I spend money on making sure that my kids have the greatest opportunity in education and pathways in front of them.

Not education just like college, but I'll make sure that they are put in front of people that actually can make a difference in their life to absorb. And so I will leave very little to my children, maybe ten to 20%. I have such a passion for what I'm doing around the world. My money is going to be deployed into a place that will perpetuate it for generations to come so that it'll continue to. My kids will have the greatest opportunity to succeed.

I want to make sure that my money goes to help a 1000, 10,000, 10,0000 other children succeed too. We're going into the summer of 2024 leading into an election year. There's been a lot of chaos out there. What would you say to someone to stay focused and stay calm in the midst of all the chaos? Yeah, we have to have the mindset of an investor, not a consumer.

And what happens is in the election cycle, we all get forced into this consumer mindset. We're told to hold on, to be careful. I found the greatest investments during the election cycle. Do you know in the last four election cycles, the interest rate has always dropped some? I believe the interest rate is going to drop again in this election cycle.

Do you know that gas prices always go down during election cycle? You know, you can look at it, it is manipulated to a certain degree. So why not play the game that they're actually serving us up to play instead of being stagnant during this next six to eight month cycle, I think we should be looking for opportunities. I think the opportunities today are in affordable housing. I think they're in real estate.

I think there's a ton of private equity and opportunities out there. And so I'm poised to go hard out of a very specific investor mindset in this cycle and not stay dormant. I say clear all the noise make it. Make a good choice on who you want to vote for and then clear it all out. Stop listening to it, stop paying attention to it.

Make a choice, and then go about your business. You know, without all this nasty noise that's going to happen over the next six to eight months, don't let it affect you. You know, stay. Stay in the investor mindset. Alright, guys, you're listening to Eddie Wilson and a helicopter coming over our motorhome as we speak.

Dan Fleyshman
Make sure to check out Eddie across all social media platforms, especially Instagram. Come check us out on the Aspire tour. We're coming to a city near you and we look forward to talking to you about money all over the country. We will see you guys next Monday.

Clinton Sparks & Eddie Wilson's BILLION Dollar Exit & The Business of Gaming | E66

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1: Introduction to the Giants

2: Breaking Down the Exit

3: Insights from the Industry

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