The Money Mondays - How Celebs Lose Millions by Saying “No” | Ryan Schinman & DJ Irie 🥂 EP117

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

In this episode of The Money Mondays, Ryan Schinman and DJ Irie reveal how top celebrities miss out on millions by turning down the wrong deals. Ryan shares insider stories from his work brokering $100M+ talent deals, while Irie offers perspective from the front lines of entertainment and branding. If you want to understand the business behind celebrity endorsements, viral fame, and the high-stakes decisions that make or break careers—don’t miss this one.---Ryan Schinman is a top entertainment marketing executive and the CEO of Mayflower Entertainment. He’s known for brokering hundreds of millions of dollars in celebrity, music, and talent deals for major global brands. With a career spanning over two decades, Ryan has worked behind the scenes connecting corporations with A-list talent for commercials, endorsements, and cultural campaigns—making him one of the most influential dealmakers in the industry.---DJ Irie is an internationally renowned DJ, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Best known as the official DJ for the Miami Heat, Irie has built a powerhouse brand that blends music, sports, and business. He's a sought-after entertainer for global events and corporate partnerships, and also the founder of the Irie Foundation, which focuses on empowering at-risk youth through education and mentorship. With deep ties in both the entertainment and philanthropic worlds, DJ Irie is a cultural connector and respected voice in the industry.Like this episode? Watch more like it 👇Inside the Mind of Tai Lopez: Masterminds, Mentors, and Million-Dollar Insights: https://youtu.be/qlzbbW4hrSwShark Tank’s Daymond John: Life, Best Sales and Business Strategies: https://youtu.be/RkHBezJ3n8sDan Bilzerian Broke All the Rules & It Paid Off BIG: https://youtu.be/yMOCvk_6cxYDan Martell: The Man with the Cheat Code to Money: https://youtu.be/xj_y30BXEyoWatch ALL Full Episodes Here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6k---The Money Mondays is a business podcast here to teach you how to make money, invest money, and donate money by showcasing some of the world's most successful people and how they do the same. Hosted by serial entrepreneur Dan Fleyshman, the youngest founder of a publicly traded company in history, this money podcast gives you an exclusive behind the scenes look at how the wealthiest celebrities, entrepreneurs, athletes and influencers make, invest and donate money.If you want to learn more business and investing while you work to improve your financial life, you're in the right place! Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneymondays?sub_confirmation=1Dan Fleyshman,The Money MondaysLearn more here: https://themoneymondays.comWatch all the podcast episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6kLet’s Connect...Website: https://themoneymondays.comPodcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-money-mondays/id1663564091Twitter: https://twitter.com/themoneymondaysLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-money-mondays/about/TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@themoneymondaysFB: https://www.facebook.com/The-Money-Mondays-110233585203220/

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a very, very, very special edition to the Money Mondays podcast because I have a guest that always turns me down. He turns everybody down for speaking, for podcasts, for interviews, because everybody wants him, but he likes to be behind the scenes where he spends hundreds of millions of dollars with celebrities, brands, TV commercials, and a lot of things that you see in video games and television, he's actually the mastermind behind it. So our guest, Ryan Schimann,

I'm gonna have him do a quick two minute bio so we can get straight to the money. I think, thanks Dan, thanks for having me. And yes, the $8.72 that you paid me to be here today is definitely worth it. It was $9. That's all it took to get me on the mic. At the end of the day, though, my bio is

pretty simple. I started off as a sports agent. I loved it at 19. I was probably the youngest guy in history to be a sports agent. I did that for a little while then I was the CMO, the first publicly traded sports marketing company when I turned 26. And what I realized what I really enjoyed is working on the brand side versus working on the brand side versus working on the talent side. Working on the talent side,

you're pitching talent all the time, you're kind of selling. My vision was how do I become a buyer? And in 98, I started a company called Platinum Rye Entertainment. And our entire vision was if corporations would buy talent, music, and celebrity, and athletes, the way they bought media through one vertical,

you get cost savings, cost avoidance, and value add. So what does that mean? Essentially, it's collective buying. Why does someone like Pepsi use OMD to buy media instead of hiring three smart people to buy their media? OMD is buying on behalf of 40, 50, 60 companies, so when they're calling Conde Nast or Van Wagner Outdoor, they're calling NBC,

they get cost savings, cost avoidance and value added. And that was kind of the vision behind PlatinumRy, which I sold to 2004 to Omnicom. We sold the International 2007 to them. Stayed a long time, started a lot of other businesses, digital marketing businesses, a nightlife business, and event marketing businesses, which have all been sold. And today I'm the CEO of Mayflower Entertainment, which is essentially PlatinumRy 4.0, where we buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of talent, music, celebrity, and music licensing

on behalf of brands. And again, Dan, we represent the brands, the ad agencies, the corporations, not the talent. Is managing talent like babysitting? I mean, it wasn't fun, especially because I wasn't managing Tom Brady or Rihanna. So at the end of the day, when you have third, fourth and fifth round draft choices or, you know, a second round basketball player that you're begging to get a local car deal with, or doing just a trading car deal at the time. Much better being on the branding side. But look, a lot of babysitting too, Dan, you know, CMOs, CEOs,

heads of corporate communications can even be sometimes more challenging than the talent themselves. So let's say there's a big brand out there, food brand, makeup brand, hair brand, beverage brand, and they want to go get a JLo, Rihanna, Tom Brady, etc. Why not go try to find someone direct to them rather than going through an agency or a big company like yours? It's a great question.

I think here's the real reality. I think today with technology, with information, anybody can call and get in touch and figure out somebody's agent, someone's manager, someone PR agent, someone's lawyer. It's not that hard to get to the talent. The secret sauce is A, knowing the right talent and what they'll do and what they won't do for the budget. Two, knowing if there's conflict. So if it's a beverage brand, do they already have a beverage conflict

so you don't look like an idiot when you call and say, I'd like to have you for X, Y, and Z beverage. Knowing the price points, knowing the attributes, knowing the analytics behind it, but more importantly, it's having that leverage that I was talking about of spending and the buying power. So if someone's going to be a half a million dollars to do something, I better be getting it for $375 or $400 grand. If someone only wants to do two posts, I better be getting four or five. Someone wants to fly private, I sure as hell hope they're going to fly commercial for me.

And that doesn't mean they're best friends with me. That doesn't mean they love me or we're really brilliant negotiators at Mayflower Entertainment. It's pure and simple. It's called leverage. And that's it. So we're CAA's biggest commercial buyer, WME's biggest commercial buyer, UTA, all the record labels, all the publishers' biggest buyers. So not only do we have that inside knowledge of inside baseball, of really what's going on, but we have the leverage and we also know what they've gotten for other endorsement deals.

So I think anybody, like I said, can get to somebody. It's another thing to know their worth, know what they'll do or not do and negotiate a great deal on behalf of the brand. How do you think celebrities or athletes can stay consistent? Because a lot of them flare up and they fade away or they have one hit wonder and they fade away. They have a huge career and then they fade away. How can they stay consistent to make you still want to pay them? I think it's pretty interesting because back when I started, essentially 30 years ago,

you'd have to win five Grammys to be relevant. You'd have to be on a TV show that lasted 10 years on CBS. You'd have to have four or five big blockbuster movies. I think the problem now for talent is we live in a world of instant celebrity, which you would know more than I do someone we've never heard of today, legitimately in 30 days could have 50 million people following them on YouTube, they become hot for the moment. So what happens with that is we have someone who represents brands and companies, we have so many more people to

choose from. It used to be very Casablanca-esque, line up the usual suspects, and it'd be the same 10 girls, 10 guys, 10 athletes that everyone cared about. Now how quickly can we get on board that train that when someone has a quick hit that goes viral and all of a sudden they're number one, we can't wait six months to do a spot. We gotta do something now. Both of our good friend Gary really talks about that all the time at VaynerMedia, which is, what are you doing? We gotta pounce on this idea now.

We gotta pounce on the moment now. How do we create a piece of content that pairs with what's going on to stay relevant? But I think, you know, it's very hard if your talent, like I said, you know, Brad Pitt's not going anywhere, but he's really not on social media. So he's great to be the face of Brioni. But is he great to be the face of a new drink that needs people to, you know, post constantly and be out there constantly? But even if you look at what happened a year ago, two years ago, Lizzo was hot, and she kind of faded, and then Ice Spice was hot,

and she kind of faded, and now Dochi's hot. So very few people are Lady Gaga, who, yeah, she has ebbs and flows, but she's relevant for the past 15, 20 years, you know? But a lot of those people now, whether it's TV, film, sports who have kind of have implosed but kind of have been in that pop culture zeitgeist, are starting their own brands. They want equity. They don't want even $5 million to be in a Super Bowl ad.

An unnamed talent that I can tell you that's probably one of the biggest female pop artists in the world, one of our brands offered her $20 million to be in an ad. And you know what she said? No, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity, but no, thank you. So it shows how much money the top AAA talent is making. And what happens is sometimes also, Dan, not to kind of throw you a curveball, but the A minus and B plus list talent sometimes think that they could also do what Kim's done with

Kim's or what Rihanna's done with Fenty or what, you know, the Paul's done, KSI for Prime or Mr. Beast with Feastables. That's very difficult. That's the 1% of the 1% of the 1%. And even that we don't know how long those brands are going to last. So, you know, I would say the biggest faulty of a lot of this talent is when they're hot at the moment, they don't capitalize this, oh, I'm holding out for Chanel, or I'm going to hold out for $5 million. And then a year later, they're calling back and being like, excuse me, Mayflower, can you bring us some brand deals? And they're like, Oh, I thought you were starting your own jewelry company. And now you want to, you want to do this. So I think you got

to capitalize. I think the most famous moment was I remember years and years ago when when Jeremy Lin there was something called Lin sanity in New York when he played with the Knicks and we would bring him so many deals and he would turn down so many deals and his family who was kind of involved would be like no no no we're holding out we're holding out we're holding out a year later there was no such thing as Lin sanity and he should have taken the millions and millions of dollars that were offered to him for people to capitalize at that moment. So the town and their managers and agents have to be managed right. There's nothing worse than me negotiating or someone on my team negotiating with an

imagine or agent or lawyer. It's good to believe in your client. It's good to believe Ed DeRionna or Tom Brady or or Messi, but not everybody is so pounce Do the deal if it makes sense and go on to the next So you've done it for a lot of food brands I remember last year you did like five or six or seven of the biggest commercials in the world and you did these celebrity Deals so when a brand comes to you, let's call it a KFC McDonald's type brand they come to you and they're like, okay Pick the talent or maybe they have it a town mine. How do you decide 1 million, 5 million, 10's two business models that we have. One is somebody says, go fetch.

I want Dochi or, you know, I want Tyler or I want Billy Eilish. And we go fetch, we give them the analytics, we tell them what else is doing, we get a price, we kind of look at what else they've done in the marketplace, what they have coming up, what projects they have, do they have a new record that's hitting? Are they going on tour? How can we tie into them? Will they do interviews or not? And then the second model is I want a Latin comedian or I want a piece of music that sounds like Beautiful Day by YouTube but isn't Beautiful Day.

What's the modern version of Beautiful Day that's out there right now? And that's where our team really gets to work. You know, we have a sports team, a music team, a Hollywood team, an international team, and all of our teams kind of sit back and say, okay, let's look at here's 20 people that fit that creative or fit that brief. Here's what they're doing. Here's what they have going on. Here's what they're doing. Here's what they have going on. Here's what they're excited about.

By the way, that person will not do Burger King because they're vegan or hey, that person loves your product because they love fries and can't wait and that's their kind of food passion. So we give them all the information, everything that's going on, provide the analytics, give our point of view, but we also like the brands to choose. We give them, it's kind of like multiple choice. Here you go. Whatever fits the brief.

What's also nice is we're not trying to step on the toes of their ad agencies or their PR agencies who are coming up with the brilliant creative that the talent needs to be in or the brilliant creative that I need to plug in a piece of music to or the amazing creative that an athlete wants to tie themselves to. And I think what's important is we try to sit at the epicenter because when you have the ad agency and the corporate communications agency, they sometimes don't talk. You would think they would,

but they don't a lot of the time. So one, sometimes what happens is the PR or corporate communications or digital agency is working on something. The ad agency is working on something. And if we're at the epicenter, we can say, Hey, wait. You want this person to develop content and show up at these three things as you're launching a new product.

It's the same time as the ad agency is coming up with new creative, why don't we get one talent to do both? And that way the right marries the left. So what sometimes happens when we're not involved is ad agency will come up with great creative PR agency will come up with great kind of ancillary material and content, which is sometimes even more relevant than the hero spot nowadays. But they're not talking. So we need to kind of be there and say, hey guys, let's all work together and figure out to get the assets you need, to get the assets you need,

and here's the right person to do it and go from there. So you mentioned that multiple of the companies have been acquired and you've gone off and acquired some companies along the way as well. Why is it important? Why are some of these media companies buying each other? Why are they buying you? Why are you buying companies?

Like why is that happening in this space? Well, I think at the end of the day I don't care if it's a CPG company like Pepsi buying poppy last week or you know Hershey's buying companies or so, you know Everybody's buying companies. I think you know, everybody's buying companies. I think, you know, P and G buys companies, Unilever buys companies, Colgate, Pomolov. I think what happens is people have bigger companies that we can talk about the media

companies in a second, but even in traditional companies, they innovate, but people are risk averse there. People will get a great salary or in departments. If they take risks, they're sometimes penalized for it if it doesn't work out. The entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs for a reason. And they're not afraid to take risks. They're not afraid to be bold.

They're not afraid to try stuff and pivot and see what works. And then ultimately, you get acquired by someone who says, Wow, I wish we would have thought of that developed that marketing that. And that's also why you hear of when, for example, you know, I was an investor in Sir Kensington and we sold Unilever. The brand was so great. It redefined kind of a premium condiment, whether it's ketchup or mustard or mayonnaise, but the minute you put it inside a bigger company, it kind of lost its shine. It lost its way.

And you don't hear about it anymore. And it's too bad because it was a brand that the two founders had at a vision. They created ketchup in their dorm rooms. They seasoned it. They thought of the name and the graphics, and they were scrappy and didn't have millions of dollars of marketing budgets. Then it goes inside this ecosystem. And who knows? So I think the same thing happens with these media companies.

I mean, look at our friends Ryan and Chris, who, you know, four or five months ago sold to publicists. Could publicists have developed 10 years ago and influence and figured out that influencers are the wave of the future and brands interacting with their billions of dollars to spend? Sure. But Ryan and Chris did it better. They thought of it. They were bold. They got strategic investments for people like WME who put money in and believed in

them. They worked with brands and were scrappy and got more and more and more brands. And then people realize, hey, wait a second, creator economy really means something. And sometimes, it's better to have these makeup influencers than Julia Roberts, because Julia Roberts looks beautiful in a commercial, but she's not doing a post a week. Right. And she's also not posting for a living right her career is making unbelievable movies The creators are about creating every day and that's all they want to do and what is their unique point of view to create? Same thing with event marketing companies who can be really creative

You know when we sold the brewing capital engine shop we were doing unbelievable things for for in Bev and Budweiser and unbelievable things for Mercedes and American Family Insurance and activating at Augusta and at the US Open doing stadium naming rights deals and a company in Berlin which was owned by Berlin Capital and WPP said we want that and and my partners and I you, sold but that's the secret sauce. I think at the end of the day, there's always a place for really, really good agencies that are smart, that are bold, that are hard working. And I think what you see more and more in the marketplace is people like me who have done it multiple times because you have that entrepreneurial spirit, you can't help but want to do something else.

I think part of my secret sauce is I kind of stay within my lane. My team laughs I call myself a one hit wonder because I just do the same thing over and over and over again in different iterations. But if you capture the CEO, the CMO, the head of corporate communications, EAR, and do a great job for them, and not try to do 50 things for them, be a specialist. This is what I do.

I am not trying to replace this company, this company, this company, this company. This is what I do. And I am the best at this. And I think that's why corporations really like us is because we're not trying to be someone we're not. We're not trying to capture every dollar and squeeze every dollar out of them. And we're saying, look, use me for what we're best in class at.

And by the way, you need a production company? I'm going to introduce you to one. You know, you want a great director? I'm going to introduce you to one. You want a great PR company? I work with 30 of them. Let me introduce you to the people who've done great by my brands. And I think it's that circle that also us in this community all know each other,

respect each other. I know the best 5 to 10 PR agencies. And if one of my clients says, I need a good great entertainment PR agency, here you go. I don't ask for money, I don't ask for commission. What I ask the PR agencies for is, hey, if any of those people ever want talent, think of us.

They want music, they want a booking, they want a DJ to perform, they want someone to give a speech. That's what we do, and I think by staying in your lane, you're going to be really successful in trying to be everything to everybody. So you've also done some really creative, cool deals that are in the rapper space and athlete space and DJs and music space where you placing them in video games. Video games have massive budgets. I don't think people realize the video game industry dwarfs the movie industry. It actually makes it look tiny when you really think about the math behind the hundreds of billions dollars that happen in the video game space

Talk about going and getting like the cool rappers and athletes and placing them and I think without naming the the Video game companies we work with because we work with all different ones social games hardcore games this and that I think what? social games, hardcore games, this and that. I think what musical talent especially, because we also put athletes and Hollywood stars and influencers in games, but I think when it really comes to music, it's explaining to them that this is a way to hit a different demo, get out there in a big way. It's more effective than radio. I mean, look, I mean, the days, why do you think all these labels are getting rid of most of their A&R radio department

that back in the day you'd go and bring the record to a DJ and be like, -"Hey, play this for me." That's the way to get exposure. -"I like DJ Harry." I think at the end of the day, you put a record in a hip game. Sure. Or you put an artist in a hip game, it can make them relevant to a totally different demo. There was a rapper, I wouldn't even call it a rapper, a very big hip hop rapper that we used last year in a game and we did a concert with them in the game and we helped age down

the people who listened. My 12 year old had never heard of this person. Wow. Interesting. All of a sudden they did a concert in the game and my 12 year olds like singing and knowing every record the guy ever did following them. And you would kind of have that Holy cow moment that that piece of content and that record playing

and that visual to a 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 year old, 17, 18 year old to 21 year old who haven't heard of you or heard of you but aren't that familiar with your music, you're opening back up to a different audience and then you see their Spotify playlists start to get more. You see their social start to get more. And I think, you know, with a lot of the companies we work with, they get pitched every day now. I think there's not a major label, or maybe independent label, that doesn't have somebody

that's looking into the video game market, or gaming market, to how do we get artists played. And I think it's it becomes a very, very important part of the label or the record or the artists marketing plan is back in the day, if you could land that perfect commercial for exposure. Now it's now it's more about gaming, you can land that game because it also a lot of it can live forever in that game. Back in the day Guitar Hero, which we

weren't involved in, that Activision had, it was the same thing, people wanted to be on Guitar Hero because that music was gonna be played, you were interacting with the game, and it was pretty amazing that they were one of the first to really meld music and gaming together. Rock Band kinda was an iteration of that.

But now, I don't care what gaming company you are. Think about the youth when they're playing the game. Music is a very natural component. Brands and snacks, yeah, you're eating them and you're doing them. But being locked in and listening and watching and experiencing with your friends and peers, playing while listening is a very emotional moment. And who you want to play as is just as important. What kind of outfits you want to wear, what is your costume, who do you want to be like. And it's pretty amazing.

And also, I think a lot of the video game companies are very quick to react to trends, as we were talking a little bit about before, how maybe advertisers are a little slower. I think the ability to here's a TikTok kind of sound or moment, whether it's a real song or not, how do we get that in game? And how do we get it in game quickly and capitalize on that moment or a dance or saying And I think I think these gaming companies are very hip to the fact that hey, we're not gonna pay top dollar Because no different than the radio stations back in the day didn't pay you, you know I'll add a money to play their songs on the radio. We're now a voice to the next generation and

The future generations so you want to mess with us. Right. We're going to figure this out together. What's important to you? What's important to us? Let's put a deal together. Why do you think it's important for brands to incorporate some type of philanthropy or charity to their brand overarching?

Well, I think that's a great question. I think that some brands do it to check the box. We have to do it. It's something that kind of if you look back, I think Tom's was one of the first to really be out there and have a one for one buy pair of shoes are going to be giving a pair of shoes. And and Tom was kind of the leader in that. Now people had done it before and given a foundations and like cereals or soda or cars. But he was the first to really bring to the forefront

doing great projects by doing good and having a great product. And doing good is really important. and having a great product and doing good is really important. But I think today's culture and today's consumer knows if it's a check the box or if it's something that makes sense. What I would also say is when a brand says to me, I'd like so-and-so to perform, and it's a cancer awareness charity, why won't they do it for free? Or I know they make a million dollars,

but for a hundred grand, that's a lot of money for our charity. I don't understand. What, what do they think they're too good for us? And what I would say, but take a step back, that that person might not have a connection to cancer awareness. That person might have something to do with AmfAR, or that person may have something to do with Alzheimer's,

or what's important to them, or music cares. So sometimes, a brand aligning with a charity that wants to align with talent, you have to take a step back and say, what's important to that talent? What are the talent's causes? And why don't we support the talent's causes that are important to them? And they might support your cause. But again, the days of, I'm a million dollars, you should do this for me for 100 grand because I'm a good cause,

are out the window because there are hundreds of charities which are needed in this country. I'm a big believer it but I think you also have to listen and understand who makes sense and who has a personal connection to that charity or to that foundation that wholly wants to be a part of it and feels it because again, you know a lot of people who speak More than I do authenticity authenticity authenticity So you got to have that connection You got to be able to tell that story and why that talent is going to be there and you want the talent to want to? Lean in and not just even take a small pay cut from a million to five hundred grand

Find the connection. All right. So there's one question that I ask on every episode and I've never ever, ever gotten the same answer. This is episode, I think 118, 119. So you build up your company, you go acquire a bunch of other companies. And one day, many, many years from now, become a multi-billion dollar company. But finally, Ryan passes away.

What percentage of that billion dollars do you leave to those children? To my children or children in general? To your children. To my children. Oh, very, very, very good question. I thought the children. The children of the world? I believe the children of the people.

I think it's something I've thought about, right? I'm 53 years old. I'm not a 23 year old or 33 or 43 year old entrepreneur. So I've had a lot of time to think about it. And I think my answer changes here and there. And if we're going to talk on a percentage basis, they're going to get a lot of it, but they're not going to get it all at once. They're not going to get it on their 18th or 21st birthday.

But I want for my kids to wake up every day and be as passionate about what they are doing as I am for what I do. So if my 12 year old son decides to be a high school lacrosse coach, and that's what he's passionate about, I don't want him to ever worry about a mortgage, a car, maybe sending his kids to private school or camp. I don't want him to worry, but he's got to work. He's got to work hard. And he's got to be passionate. Same thing with

my two daughters. I have a 14 year old and an eight year old. And what's nice is my 14 year old listens to my conversations. It's almost like in the movie Sabrina, the chauffeur getting tips from, you know, from the heroes of it from Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear. But at the end of the day, or back in the day, Humphrey Bogart. But for me, my 14-year-old listens. Her and her friend Violet want to form Gravy Entertainment. Her name is Grace and it's Violet.

And they're already talking about their company at 14 years old. And she asks questions, she listens, she learns, she gives me advice on who's cool and who's not because as you know, Dan, and I don't want to admit to many people that don't know me but I'm not on social media on any forum, I or my space or hot or not. All the big ones never been on a dating app either. But at the end of the day, the reality of it is, is I want my kids to work to be driven, but to do what they love without the worry of their next paycheck is going to X, Y, and Z.

So it's not an exact number, but it's a number to be comfortable, but still want to work hard. And, um, that's what's important to me. I think, I think, you know, now more than ever with what's going on in the world, you focus on, you know, to me, three or four things, health, family, friends, experiences. And again, I know it sounds cliche, but, you know, again, I started on 19 and I'm 53 now, I feel like I've never worked a day in my life. Our motto, this is not easy to do it due to, you know, if companies and agencies could

get talent or music for the price that they want, for the usage that they want, with the deliverables that they want, I wouldn't have a job, right? So nothing's easy. But we solve problems with enthusiasm. That's always been my motto. Let's solve these problems with enthusiasm. Let's find a way. Let's always kind of be straightforward. It's not go like this and let's do the right thing.

And it's, I think probably if you said, but you didn't ask, but I'll answer anyway. What am I most proud about of Mayflower Entertainment, my current company that's in its ninth year right now, and probably most of my other companies and my partners that I've had. We have very, very, very little turnover. In nine years of having, almost nine years, our ninth year of having Mayflower, we fired one person, we had one person

that didn't wanna be in business affairs anymore, and they wanted to be an account lead, we don't have account leads, so they went somewhere else, and we had one person go to a client who was servicing that client, the client loved them so much, they brought them in house. That's it. Wow.

Nobody really leaves because, again, from a cliché thing, you know, but a lot of people talk about their family as, oh, this is my family. It's my work family, my family. I think if you put me aside, put me in a back room and interviewed all our employees, they would all say, yeah, we're really a family. We love what we do. Ryan doesn't micromanage. He lets us do our thing.

We're empowered. We feel heard. We feel respected. And look, we just brought on someone new, started Tuesday. What day is today? Thursday, two days. Newest employee has been there two days.

And in the interview process, they don't come to me first. I let them go for four or five other people, they interview them both ways. The potential employee interviews my employees, they interview and it's more of kind of an interaction. Are you the right fit to become part of this family? Because you just can't come in and I don't want someone who's gonna be here a year, two years, three years, or four years. I want someone who's gonna be committed to learn and be a part of our family and not leave. You know?

Kind of like Hotel California. You check in, but you can never leave. But we don't want you to leave. And I think that it's very hard. We're in a very specialized business. Very hard to train new people. Very hard to bring great people aboard. There's very few specialists that do what we do in music sports or Hollywood or licensing.

And when we get them, we don't want to lose them. And if you ever do want to leave, you know, I— Hot in Amrai, we probably had over 100 people. And in, like, 14 years, I can count on two hands how many people left or quit or got fired. And when you're ready to leave, one person in my sports group wanted to go to Golf Digest, I'll make the call for you. One wanted to be a yoga instructor. I don't know where that came from. Let me help you. A couple of them wanted to start their own businesses. Let me see you. I learned that

from Julian Robertson at Tiger. If I have great people and I believe in them, and they want to go off on their own and do something tangential to my business. How can I support you? How can I back you? Both financially, with monetary capital, but also human capital. Let me find you good employees. Let's talk. How can I help? And I think that's what I'm the most proud of. And I look back at my career, which is very, very far from over, And I look back at my career, which is very, very far from over, because it's a blessing and a curse. I'm kind of never satisfied.

I'm always still hungry for the next deal, the next thing. And my wife will say to me, wow, that spot of yours was amazing with Jennifer Aniston. Didn't you love it? I said, I worked on that deal three months ago. It's over, it's on TV, great. I've done 80 deals since. I forgot that one already, but that's terrific that deal three months ago. It's over, it's on TV, great. I've done 80 deals since. I forgot that one already, but that's terrific that you're enjoying it.

And I think it's staying hungry, staying on top of things, training great people, surrounding myself with really freaking smart people. You know, it's very easy to get a 1080 on your SATs, which I get. So I make sure that everybody else is at least above that. But as you can tell, I'm very enthusiastic. I'm still bullish about our business.

I think more and more brands, no matter what sector you're in, wanna use athletes, celebrities, influencers, music to sell, right? Because what am I really doing? We're helping people become aware of products and sell, right? We want consumers to buy what we're selling using talent and music celebrity, but it works. It's always worked. It's going to continue to work, and it's becoming more and

more relevant. I don't know a new brand out there that at least doesn't want an influencer to talk and shout out and get to their audience. So I think our business has a long way to go to continue to evolve and morph and change, but I've never been more bullish on it. Ladies and gentlemen, normally, I would say go follow our guest on social media, but he doesn't have any. He is behind the scenes being the magical Wizard of Oz, spending these hundreds of millions of dollars like you've heard about, celebrities, brands, TV commercials, video games,

everything between Mayflower entertainment and some of the things that he's been working on you will see out there on Television for the rest of your lives because it sounds like he's still addicted to working for a few more decades So as you guys know with the money Mondays the whole goal This is for you guys to have real-life discussions with your friends family and followers. We all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money I think that's ridiculous. We've got to talk about loans, taxes, bank accounts, balancing a checkbook. Those are real life things in your business and in your household.

You've got to have blunt discussions with the people from your past, present, and future. So share the podcast, themoneymondays.com. I would say check out Ryan Shinmin. But why don't you just listen to this podcast and really think about what he's told you because there's very few characters on the planet that have done what he's done over his career.

30 years of being in this game, and you can learn a lot. You might want to share this with your friends, family, and followers. We will see you guys next Monday on themoneymondays.com. ["Money Mondays"] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Money Mondays. This is a very special, near and dear to my heart episode because I have one of my dearest friends here, like a brother to me.

He is someone that travels all over the planet. I happen to catch him. We're in his hometown, but he's barely ever here because he's flying this way, this way, this way, performing in every city around the planet. The celebrities, athletes hosting his own events, hosting his big annual charity event for I don't know how many years, like 10, 15 freaking years now. He is one of those rare humans out there in the entertainment industry that built up a personal brand from being positive and smiling all the time.

I absolutely love his energy. That's also why so many brands, venues, celebrities all have an affinity and gravitate towards him because of his energy from his smile from his laugh. So we're going to do is on the money Mondays, we cover three core topics, how to make money and invest money, how to give it away to charity. But first, we're going to have DJ Irie give a quick two minute bio so we can get straight to the money. Let's get it, man. Let's get to the money. DJ Irie, listen, thank you so much for such a kind intro. I appreciate that, man. And listen, when family calls, family shows up, right? So

so we're here. Listen, I'm a kid that just love music, right? And music has taken me on such an incredible journey, started out collecting records, had an opportunity to DJ an event. This is like literally like my senior year high school. school. Ended up working out because everybody was drunk. And it ended up being the general manager of Planet Hollywood that I did the event for. And he was really impressed by what I was doing, ended up giving me an opportunity at Planet Hollywood. This was when Planet Hollywood was like the wildest thing ever.

The Vegas casino? No, no, no, in Miami. Oh, the restaurant. The restaurant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was. Oh, the restaurant. The restaurant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was one of my first opportunities. And then from there I went to the skating rink and the next thing you know, I'm on the radio. I get a call from the Miami Heat.

Hey, we need to talk. And in 1999, 2000, I was the first official DJ, not just of the Miami Heat, but any professional sports franchise. No way. You know that? Yeah, it didn't exist before that. This is the 1999-2000 season when this happened.

They had just moved from the Miami Arena to the American Airlines Arena, and the marketing team was like, hey, let's do something really cool and different. And they came up with the idea of having an official DJ. And I started asking around town and ended up, hey, I think Irie's the guy that we should start this with. And the funny thing about it was,

when Keeping It Real goes wrong, well, all this went wrong. I said no at first. What? Yeah, I'm an idiot. Hello, Miami Heat, nah. I mean, this guy needs to be committed, right? Yeah, I thought, I didn't think it was really on brand for me at the time, right?

Because understanding who their season ticket holders were, which is really like what they focus on, you know? I was like, these are not the folks that are listening to my radio show, they're not the folks that are coming to my nightclub events. And then I woke up and said, hey, this is an incredible opportunity.

15,000 people a night. Yeah, I was like, there's something here. You know, thank God I did, you know, three championship rings later, right? And just the most incredible experience of my life, you know, so that worked out really well. And then, you know, here we are today, you know, started the IRE Foundation, started IRI Weekend,

which is on its 19th year. 19th year. 19th year. Sorry, I said 10 to 15 years. 19 years. Yeah, 19 years. That is definitely something. 19th year of IRI Weekend, artist-related,

which is our events and talent acquisition firm. And yeah, and of course, I read Music Corp, which handles my appearances and traveling all over the world. All over the planet. And yeah, and we're here. This is the most important place to be, is right here, right now.

So when venues try to book you or events try to book you, how do you determine, how do you fit it all in, because your schedule is so crazy, how do you decide when you're going to say yes, when you're going to say no? Well, it's a lot different now. It's a lot different now. Well, first of all, I don't put too much time and energy and focus into just regular nightclub nights anymore.

The focus is really a lot more on private events and corporate. The cool thing with that is clubs are great. Don't get me wrong. That's where I started. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for all the support I got from my clubs. But from where I am now in my career and in my life, it's more than just going out and playing some songs, right? You know, the relationships and what we're looking to create, you know, opportunity business-wise is a lot bigger, right, than just an event. And that's, that magic happens in the private events world and in the corporate events world, right?

So that's the first thing is the nature of the event, right? You know, second thing is, cause I don't ever want to just show up, play some music and leave. Great, even for a good amount of money, that's cool, because money is important. But that same amount of time, I'd rather put that into something where I can create a relationship that can create a much bigger opportunity. Whether it be on the event side, whether it be on the talent side,

whether it be on brand side, there's always another opportunity to come out of an event. If you look at it as a platform and springboard rather than just, you know, hey, I'm going to go and play a couple songs, you got to check and leave. So there's so many interesting characters from sports, billionaires, models, that all try to become DJs. Sure, yeah. Right? Yeah. What do you say to them about how they can actually

get good at it so they're not just trying to check a box and like, I'm a DJ now, and be able to say that they're DJs? I'll tell you exactly how, and I'll give you an example, because there's really, listen, when it comes to the motivation behind doing this, a lot of people have different motivations, right? But there's only one motivation that you'll literally excel, right? And be embraced because people understand authenticity, right? And I think the best example I could probably give you, and it's very near and dear to me

because I taught him how to DJ is Shaq. Listen, I don't have enough fingers on two of my hands to tell you how many celebrities I've personally had conversations with that they wanna become DJ. Really? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Man. Man.

But I wanna focus on Shaq for a minute because Shaq, when he first came to Miami, this was 2004 or five, right? Shaq comes to Miami. We had known each other before, right? Just being around the scene. But he called me and he's like, hey man, come by the house.

He's bought his house in Starling. Come by the house, I want to build out a studio. Right? And I thought he's just wanted, you know, cause he's always rapping, right? So I said Come on, I wanna build out a studio. And I thought he's just wanted, he was always rapping. So I said, cool, I'll come help you out. I said, go over there. And he's like, no, no, no, like a DJ studio.

I wanna learn how to DJ. I was like, what? He goes, yo, I really, really love it. I wanna learn how to DJ. I said, all right, cool. So we put the equipment in and you know what? He would go out and do like an away game, get back to Miami like two o'clock in the morning.

He's calling me up, hey man meet me at the house. And he's ready, he's putting the time in, he's putting the time in, putting the time in, putting it in, putting it in, right? He didn't wanna fake the funk, right? He didn't wanna just have the look, he wanted to truly, truly understand it. And the dude put in countless, countless, countless hours,

right, and it shows, because you see where he's at today. And that's when he told me, he says, hey man, I wanna play what I wanna play, and I wanna travel the world, I wanna tour, I wanna really, really, really do this. And if you don't have that level of passion for it, doesn't matter what your name is. Yeah, you might get a gig here or there,

but you're never gonna truly excel. Like Shaq has excelled at it. DJ Diesel is a thing. For sure. DJ Diesel is a hard ticket act. For sure. That's not easy. It's not easy, right?

It's not easy moving thousands of tickets, especially as a DJ. And he's doing it. And he's not doing it because of his past doing dunks or NBA championships. They're doing it because they love what he's playing and how he's playing it. And he's developed that, he's honed that over years.

So if you don't have that approach, honestly, you can forget about excelling. So someone out there's listening to Money Mondays, maybe they're a DJ or a music artist, and they're going out there performing for free at first, right? They're going to wherever they can go to the W Hotel Ballroom, the lobby, they're going to the restaurant, they're going to the places to just DJ or perform for free to build their name. What's the turning point where they can finally say, pay me 500 bucks or pay me $1,000 or pay me $2,000? It's very simple.

When you're out doing that date for free and you also have a call to do something else and you're getting five bucks for it, now you know you're on to something, right? Because it's your time. It's your time and you have to put a value on your time. Right? So you're right.

Those, all those dates we did for free, that wasn't for free, that was you investing in yourself. Right? Right, that was an investment. Investments, when done correctly, guess what? Yield a return. Right? So now you start getting that call,

hey, I want you for this date. Ah, you know what, I have some on there. getting that call, hey, I want you for this date. Oh, you know what, I have some on there. Well, shoot, we consider my offer. I want to pay $2,000. Yes, what? Yeah. I'll do this instead. Yeah, right. And, and that's what is, you know, you get out there, you get your name out there, you get people start hearing your style, you get people to get a taste of what you can do

and start creating that demand, right? And creating that demand will yield that return. So you're going through this journey and you decide 19 years ago to start IRE weekend, start the foundation. Why is it, why still stick with it 19 years later and have guys like Shaq show up, Dwayne Wade, et cetera, come to your golf tournaments.

Honestly, you know why? Because it's not easy. Right? It's not easy and it's necessary. You know, the thought process behind doing it in the first place was, I was getting calls constantly. Dan Marino, hey man, we're having something for the kids. We'd love for you to come out.

They'd love to see you. If you can be a part of it, absolutely let's do it. Right, Udonis Haslam, hey man, we have something going on. Let's do it, Alonzo, hey let's do it. Shaq would call, right? Always amazing, you know, Dwayne, you know, and I would always try to be there. You know, the Special Olympics, you know,

Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Make-A-Wish, we're all, hey, we're having something. As long as it was physically possible for me to be there, I felt it incumbent upon myself to do it as my form of giving back, you know? And moving around and seeing what's going on in my community, I start noticing areas where like, well, I don't think this is getting enough attention, right?

I don't think this area is getting, you know, any kind of visibility, right? And I think this is important. And I was like, well, I'm not one to be like, well, hey, someone should do something. Right. I'll do it, right? And how do I gather the resources to be like, well, hey, someone should do something. Right. I'll do it. Right?

And how do I gather the resources to start focusing on things that I believe are important in society? And that is, OK, well, shoot, maybe I should make some calls and see if they'll come and support me. Right? And the most amazing thing about it was when I figured out what I wanted to do, I started making some calls and it was absolutely, of course I'll be there, right?

What else can I do? And it was just overwhelming, you know? And that's how we got it off the ground and year after year to see, you know, me, success is how many kids can we help? Sure. Right? How many scholarships can we send out? How many kids can we get cars?

How many things can we do to support them to be successful in their endeavors and get them out of their situation? And as long as we can do that and convert these lives and put them on a path to success, this hard work is worth doing. And we're gonna continue doing it. So a lot of people interface with celebrities, athletes, business people, et cetera,

but I think they get their phone number where they take a quick picture and they don't actually build a relationship. These are your friend friends. Yeah, for sure. We've all seen on your social media that Jamie Foxx is in the world, you travel the world with these people, you'll film with them, perform with them,

not post them sometimes, sometimes they're posting you. There's hundreds of times you've not posted it. And I always want to push him like, dude, you're with who? So bad, man. I'm so bad, I'm so bad. But you're so good at building the relationship where they want you there. Yeah.

For someone that's trying to build a relationship with someone that's bigger than them, maybe it's a bigger business person, a bigger celebrity, a bigger athlete, a bigger music artist that they aspire to be like, or they just want to be closer friends with them. What would you say about the relationship part to make people feel comfortable with having you there? You know what? It's a great question.

Right. And it's funny, I was talking to a friend of mine just the other day. I won't say who he is, but he's worth about six billion, right? And he's a really, really good friend of mine. And we go on vacations together. He lends me his yacht. It's unreal, you know? And I'm like, you know what's funny?

He called me. This is like two days ago. He was telling me about a situation. He wanted to get my advice on something, right? He's talking about a situation of someone who I know as well, and he kind of gave me the rundown. And I was like, damn. Like, this is kind of a messed up situation because it was a really

close friendship that kind of went sorry over over over money. Right. And I was like, wow, never once is I've been damn listen, man, I'm blessed. Super, super, super, super blessed, right? But you, I've had tough times, right? And I'm sure a lot of people out there have had tough times, right? You know what's funny?

In my tough times, and don't get me wrong, if I was in a situation where I couldn't put food in my family's mouths, you know, I would do whatever I had to do to do that. But I've never been in a situation where I didn't have to worry about where my next meal's gonna come from. But it would have been really, really, really convenient

for me to pick up the phone and call my billionaire friend and say, hey man, I need X amount, can you help me? And honestly, you know what? They probably would, they probably would. But you know what? I still wouldn't. And this is me talking for me. One thing I never want one of my wealthy friends

to think is that he's around because he needs something from me. Right? And I know if I really, really needed it, I could. But it opened my eyes hearing that situation, right? It's like, they're people, right? Whether they be famous or whatever, but they're still people, right? And they want to be valued as a person, first and foremost. And you know what, if I didn't mention,

oh hey man, I'm going through a tough time, whatever, they'd be the first ones to be like, hey, what you need. You know what I mean? I got you. But for me, it's more important that we're buds, right? We're buds, I got you. We can talk about anything. We hang, we have fun, you know?

One thing I'm never gonna be is your dependent. Yeah, right? Never gonna be, maybe some other people around you, you know, might need that, but me, I work for mine, I figure it out. I figure it out, and they respect that. You know what I mean? They respect that, they respect that.

And even for me and other people that see it around me, and I know certain things, I respect that. You know? And if you stand for that, that's something that will carry you a long ways in that kind of circle. You know? Don't ever be in that circle as someone that looks at, okay, what can I get?

You know? Oh, they got it. So I can ask for it. Don't ever, ever, ever be that way. Ever. The godfather of my baby is the founder of Marvel Studios. Sold it to Disney for, you know, $4 billion and ended up being $8 billion deal.

And my 17 years have been close friends and my one rule that he doesn't know about is I don't do business with him. Yeah. He's the godfather of my child. We've been around the planet together. We hang out 30 times a year. And I asked him business advice and he asked me life advice.

And he's asked about like, can I invest in this, can I invest in that? And I've skirted around it without ever telling him my one rule. Wow. And some of those companies have worked out great and he's joked about it, but he doesn't actually know why I don't do it. And I just don't want to ever have that situation where he puts in 100K or 10 million or a million, whatever the number is, into a deal. And whether it works out or not,

I don't want to have that interaction. Where many of my other friends, I do want that. Sure. Like I want that relationship, I want to help them make money, but him putting in a million and getting back three million changes nothing. True. And so there's not as much of an incentive for me to help.

For sure. He doesn't need to make money, he doesn't care about that. He wants life. True. And so there's not as much of an incentive for me to help. For sure, exactly. He doesn't need to make money, he doesn't care about that. He wants life. Exactly. He wants experiences. And guess what? That's what you can bring to the table. A lot of times if you don't realize,

you have to understand how different people fit into your life. Yeah. Right? And what is of value to them. Experiences are what they're valued. Absolutely. I invite them they're value. Absolutely. I invite him to charity events.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I bet you that's made that has enriched his life more than money ever could. I still fight to pay for the dinners before he can get to the bill, by the way. Right? It's funny, listen, some of these folks, they don't even know what that is.

It's just they automatically, whoever they're with, expects them to handle it. You know what I mean? His eyes are bugged out when there's no check coming in. Wait, what? Yeah, it's already paid for. But that's the person I wanna be, right? When it comes to being in those circles, you know?

And I think that's, you know, why I've become, you know, I mean, not why I've become, I mean, not only we become family and stuff, but they look at you differently. And here's the thing about it too, is like, for me, I love music, music is my business, but I'm a businessman. I operate a number of companies, right? And, but first and foremost, I'm a DJ.

And I'm a DJ that has entered this world of music, right? And have created other opportunities. But here's the thing about it. When I go in these circles, a lot of times people look at me and be, oh, that's the DJ, right? That's the talent, that's the entertainment. And that's all they'll see, right? And I know, I have bigger aspirations

in terms of what I wanna talk about, right? And the opportunities I wanna explore, right? How do you change that perception? How do you change that conversation, right? And it is a, it's a process. Right? And one thing I'm most proud of is that, you know, a lot of these folks I'm talking about that, you know, gone on to be incredibly successful and multi-billionaires,

you know, I may have met them because I was hired to perform an event, but a year, two year, three years later, we're business partners, right? Sure. We're business partners. I've been given the opportunity to invest in a product that they're doing.

They may have gotten involved in something that I'm doing, but I've over time been able to change that perception and change that conversation, right? And that is so important. That's for me, but there's other people out there that are in different fields that maybe get into, introduced into a situation, being viewed as one thing does not mean you have to stay in that position, right?

Use your knowledge, your intellect, and put it out there, your aspirations. And people will be receptive to that. And next thing you know, you're in different rooms having different conversations than you ever even dreamt about. So there's a couple key restaurant nightclub groups that we know of, right? That the public knows about because there's front-facing figures. You have Jason Strauss on this side, Noah Teppenberg over here, Dave Gretman in Miami.

There's certain main characters in the key cities. Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, etc. And there's smaller pockets where someone will start off like, Tosh would start off in Phoenix and then boom, now it's all over the country. He's got Tokemadaire all over the place. Boston, you have Randy Greenstein. Yeah, Big Night, yeah. There's certain main characters that run a city.

They've got five to 20 venues, and they are the man or the woman. And so how are some of these characters lasting for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, 30 years in a space where most restaurant nightclubs fade away after one or two years? Yep, yep. So here's the thing, that's one thing

to just have a great concept. nightclubs fade away after one or two years. to people. concepts, right? You find great customer service, whatever, but you will find people that have been a part of these organizations that, you know what, if you strip away everything else and put them on their own, they'll be doing their thing. Right. You understand what I'm saying? For sure. Right? So if you really look at it, you have all of these, you know, kind of micro leaders, right, that are incredible in their own right,

but now they're part of this bigger operation, right? So you're saying like the guys that are the movers and shakers like J Rock, Mr. Miami Purple are... Exactly. They're out there, they're the driving force behind the Gruntman empire, right? But you put it all together and it works. Right.

And it works, right? And you might have, you know, somebody go off and either go to another market or go out and somebody else is ready to come up, right? Because you take a look at Miami, right? There's a young promoter out there right now making a name for himself, right? There's a young operator out there making a name for himself, you know? Matter of fact, you know what? There's a guy, I'll call him out, a guy named Chris Cuomo, right? operator out there making a name for himself.

I'll call him out. A guy named Chris Cuomo. I met Chris. He was working with Chef B at Naira. Chris was an incredible restaurant operator. The guy just gets it. Right. Guttman tapped him and said, hey, man, I need you over here. I'm going to come to the big leagues. Right. Come to come to. You know what? And he's been a superstar. A superstar.

You see, see, Dave, one day in Portland, hey, man, what's Chris meant to your to the business? Right. And he'll tell you he's been a huge part of the business. Right. So that so understanding when it comes to leadership, one thing great about David, he understands talent. Sure. Right. Nurtures that talent and puts him in a position to win. business. be around 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. 100%. All right, guys.

As you know, on this podcast, the whole goal is to talk about money, business, and for you to have these discussions with your friends, family, and followers. We grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money in our households, but actually, it's rude not to talk about it. You've gotta talk to people around you

about your finances, accounting, taxes, balancing a checkbook, so that you don't go out there and not understand what to do for the IRS. Not understand what to do if you should lease a car or buy a car, or how should you get a loan. Not understand all the basic things that are real life. Your checkbook, groceries, all those things are real life things that you need to have discussions with the people in the past, present, and your future.

So what I want you to do is make sure to share and follow this podcast with your friends, family and followers because we've been running it ad free free for like 120 episodes now. I want you to enjoy the podcast and when you hear things or see characters on this podcast that impact other people's lives, if you know someone in the entertainment field or the music space or trying to come up in their category, well you should share a podcast with someone like I read because because they're gonna get tidbits in here that could literally change the course of their life.

Like literally change the course of their life. The butterfly effect is insane. So check out DJ iRead across all social media platforms. Visit us on the money mondays.com. We'll see you guys next Monday.