Bow, what's up everybody once again is praying man shine and as you can see I got a special guest once again This is Russ. Yo, yo Russ is currently GM at the rap fest if you don't know about the rap fest You can check them out at the rap fest on IG But I'm gonna let Russ elaborate on that but he got a lot of other things going on I'm working on a record label so many things we'll get into all that stuff But how would you just find yourself? How do you pitch yourself to people? Because I know you got a lot of things moving in the hotline Yeah, it's hard to like pin one title, but you know marketing and PR I went to school for PR.   He's been on tour rich the kid young MA He's got a record called a side nigga. That's that's done pretty well on the stream and on the YouTube side And then I got another artist in Brooklyn why him he's more still in the development phases, but You know, I'm making a bit of noise on a local level. So Yeah, man, it's between all these moving pieces on rap fest, you know That that's a project that was launched in 14 2014 and I actually came on board is just the end Well, I'm stayed real with the founder and three years later, you know He's kind of like a serial entrepreneur. So he just once he felt like it had reached a certain point He was ready to just move on to the next project He was passionate about and he just kind of gave me the keys and says did a ship. So Yeah, rap fast Island records where I'm doing marketing and brand partnerships and then just working with artists on the on a personal level whether it's and press Kind of just all it up all the above which would be like kind of like a product manager type of role. So, yeah, man Okay, okay, so let's let's start with the rap test real quick And then we'll move into all these other pieces because I might have a lot of questions for you, man With the rap face you start off as an intern doing what? Marketing digital marketing. So really my job was to grow the brand we started at zero the Twitter was at zero the Instagram's at zero And I'm in the dorm room just trying to figure out, okay, what do we do here? So now y'all at what just to get a people idea. Okay, the Instagram is at 60 K You know the Twitter is at 40 K, but the Twitter actually we have posted I don't know if you remember a couple weeks back when Kendrick was on Power we we have we have posted that clip and stars came after us and I Yeah, our Twitter has been what's in McCall? Band or something or Momentarily though Momentarily we we've been I've been, you know writing every last person in the Twitter offices trying to figure out, you know What can we do so? Yeah What you know start as an intern and then um, you know, we we just like started kind of tapping on other hip hop Pages doing little shout-out for shout-outs, you know building relationships with artists by summer of 2015 We was doing showcases. We did this one showcase. I'll never forget. It was the first one. We ever did We had taxed on, you know free him. We had him hosted And it was just like a real kind of New York City Local star study kind of event like we had like 40 ounce van pull up Artists nitty Scott who still kind of she never really broke through. She's just kind of like a New York Hometown hero. I'll be getting confused man. I'll be here in New York people say nitty. I think they talk about nitty beats I haven't heard that name in a minute Yeah Yeah, we had like nitty Scott pull up for the ounce pulled up tax hosted it who else for Manolo Rose He's he never broke through neither But um, yeah, it was just a cool night and from that and from that point on we was just kind of like getting a Nice reputation in the New York Tri-State kind of area. Okay Actually that summer summer 2015 I got my first internship at a label and I did marketing at Def Jam So that's when I started doing the juggle thing and I had Def Jam at rap fest and Yeah, from that point, I was just kind of all in on the music hip-hop So vibe, you know, so I know a lot of artists probably are gonna watch this How do y'all get artists on the rap fest like what do y'all look for? Do y'all even mess with up-and-coming artists too? Oh, absolutely. We I wanted to position us as like The the blog in particular. That's for the up-and-coming artists, you know, I I stare my my writing staff of journalists to like, you know, I Obviously we have to talk about the mainstream stuff the Kendricks and Coles and But I want to be the place where you a taste maker Publication, you know, that's that's really where I want to be so as far as up-and-coming artists. Absolutely, you know, that's that's where we um That's that's probably our signature right there.  Give it a nice little ride of your work people don't That's really it man, you know You you and I I know the same man The information is out there. There's guys like you You know, there's guys that's giving the information all day and night And it really comes down to the artists really just wanting it for themselves, you know How many artists you really that they got an excel spreadsheet they going on every blog They writing down the writers they going to the twitter they going they seeing that the email is in the twitter bio They putting the email next to the first name next to the blog In that she nobody really doing the work. So Hey, man, how'd I do that? I don't care who you are. I'm she I do that kind of stuff, man I got a list of That within the music industry. I got that within tech industry, man. I've wherever I Said man, I'm I'm gonna get some numbers and names just to give me an idea who's who that's it and you got to do that um So how about this We already know that artists can reach out and get to your writers What's been one of the more interesting things that's happened with the publication other than the kindred situation What's been one of your favorite things as far as how y'all contributed to the culture? uh, the showcases is dope. Um We we did we even did producer showcases, which I thought was probably even more dope than the artist showcase. Y'all still doing that? um We fell off of that, but I am adamant about getting back on to it because It felt like there was such a huge opportunity there. So we actually had a showcase. Um Where the winner got to to work with davis, you know, we set them up in the studio With with a session with davis to play beats for him right there close and person and stuff like that. So Um, that was just awesome. You know being able to have producers all in the room There's nothing more hip hop than a producer showcase. You know, I feel like you have to really love Hip hop to be sitting around in a room full of people listening to beats That was that I'll probably even give a nudge up above the artist showcase Because that the artist showcase even though it was dope, it was still kind of a mingle event It was it was popular people in the room. So it's like, you know, it's it's easy to show love for that But the producer showcase when people came out for that that was more like wow like people are Supporting on a very hip hop level. You know what I mean? Yeah, what are you doing at island records right now by the way? marketing brand promotion so The marketing is really just assisting three project product managers And then the brand promotion the brand partnerships. I'm sorry. That's like connecting artists with a brand so island We're actually going through a transition You know, relatively we've been known for like well obviously we've been known in the past for being Tied with def jam then they split And really since the split we've been more of a pop label doing Demi and nick Jonas acts like that But in the last five months, we have a new president. We have a new A gm and they're both black. So, um, to say the least we've been we've been Doing a hard left towards the urban side and we've been making a lot of signings and things of that nature To really go hard in the urban space because as we both know hip-hop it runs the world right now. So You know, pop it pop ain't even popping on Real talk man I knew that was bound to happen to pop man Because like when pop started off It literally just was popular music But then right right use that formula and may pop have its own sound and that sound was like kind of corny It's kind of hard to resonate with it. Like if you want to come up and culture for pop You literally have to have a record label like injection. There's no absolutely You can't independent grind your way up through pop. No, no, no, I always tell people you have to You know, I don't think anybody really does that neither if you look at like any act like even like a Taylor Swift She was country Yep Became the the the person to listen to in country music and then that became pop music where you look at drake Same thing on the urban side. He became the number one In our world and then he branched off into the larger world, you know, so You know, I don't think you could just break out in pop music You have to have like or look at uh, somebody else who's on island shampoos, you know He was in the the reggae space And crossed over, you know Somebody like Selena Gomez people like that. Like you could be a little disney star disney star with child music Yeah, and then branch off into the pop, you know, but it always it always stems from somewhere Beaver had a machine line for sure. Right, right So who were well, I don't want to get too deep until he all signed before but what kind of artists are y'all looking for? Right now I'm trying to get signed to island records because I heard I'm a little birdie that they ain't looking at hip-hop artists all of a sudden Like what kind of artists would fit y'all's deal? We really don't have a urban space identity So I wouldn't even say there's a particular frame that we looking for the shit dope and you know, the following is there That's the thing The label's only going to knock on your door when you at the point where you probably don't even want to deal with a label anymore You know, and I think that's the hardest pill for artists to swallow Um, they out here knocking on the labels doors and the labels those are the last people It's it's it's like a girl, you know, the girl don't want to deal with somebody who's texting them all day They want to deal with the guy that don't like them For us it's the same thing with with the music, you know, these guys that's like Trying to get a deal and spending their whole day trying to contact somebody at a label Those days is over, you know in the 90s sure, you know knock yourself out, but today you wasting your time You can do it yourself They better watch They better off watching your channel getting the knowledge Watching a hundred youtube channels and figuring out how to build their own team They own little small label infrastructure And going about it like that like that's that's the way to go just real Okay, because if you don't have the cloud the labels are only going to sign you and probably shelf you anywhere They're not going to put like some huge budget artists get signed Yeah, if you don't have the cloud Yeah, if you don't have the cloud and it's not a sense of urgency to put you out You're gonna get signed and you're still gonna now you're gonna have to compete with with the demi lavados and the niggas onuses of the world so it's like What's the point when you could just build your demand get a deal then And and now the labels feel obligated to put money behind you and get the ship rocking fast, you know, yep yeah, man, I've uh I mean I've spoken to some artists who've had some of those similar situations I was like you Wait oftentimes if you're about to get signed, you know, or you know somebody who Who um who wants to possibly sign you or they said they want to work with you or they kind of discovered you They already have a name, but they kind of going back and forth or if you're signed already The best way to put some urgency in them is is get popping Get popping Oh, you know, let me hurry up and lock this person down before somebody else get right I know artists I know I know artists that get deals and sit on their ass and then lose the deal six months later in their life Hasn't changed one bit And when in reality what they should have did was get the deal and act like they didn't get the deal And and still been working themselves Create an urgency in the label Because now you signed so they have if they see you making these moves without their help now they're like, okay Let's let's put our foot on the gas But but if if they're looking at you they they start to think, okay, maybe we made a mistake here Yeah, and it's nothing to drop you They're dropping you in a heartbeat man. Yeah, and my three years Being, you know with universal I've spent time at deaf jam capital republic and Alamo records I even spent time at and then now um island I've seen a lot of artists get signed that you've never heard of That you'll never hear of probably You know and it's like they got a deal and at the time I'm thinking wow That's about to take off and then like three years later. I'll think what happened to that guy man You know, it's if if I got 10 things I have to say seven of the acts that get signed Are like that and then three of them end up becoming somebody Three of them three of them out of the unknown, you know I've never heard of you until you came up here and got signed probably seven of them I I just think I think of randomly years later like man, I never popped off And then three of them right it was three And it's three to actually find their way, you know to everybody's home Hmm You know Wow So why do you feel like that is like give me a give just I'm a little bit of more insight of how the labels think How you guys think on the business side And and what a disconnect is between the artist and the business person Well, it'll be an artist that don't got any clout And they'll get signed because they have some sort of connection with somebody or something like that But that doesn't work a lot that that that more times or not that does not work That's why the labels just want to sign you after they feel like you figured it out on your own Because now once we sign you we ain't gonna mess it up You know what I'm saying if a label signs you they're not gonna mess it up So so if you already have the ship rolling you already making money selling merch doing shows all of these things The label's only gonna put money to make it bigger. But if they have to create The the the ship itself That's so that that doesn't work out that much sometimes it does sometimes it does like I said three out of 10 times Yeah, it'll work out Right no, it's not no All right, so Let's shift gears a little bit, but um, I'm an artist I'm at ground zero Where do you invest the money in marketing first? um Instagram Instagram, I always say I'll tell you why Um, the money is really in Spotify youtube, but how do you get people there? Instagram, you know, instagram is to me just the channel that bring that you could bring people to your money making channels um And and that's the platform right now. That's where it's at, you know, that's where everybody's at There's nobody not there. You know, everybody's there Um, all the influencers, that's where they're most accessible most willing to work most willing to do some sort of promo or something like that.  So, you know, Instagram I mean to that man, I always say for me to formulate is simple like you can get known for something else, but If you don't out overcome that like the way to overcome that is simply making something That's better than what they already know you for like Cardi was dropping music for a minute And it wasn't the words music I would hear, you know And I saw she was in the videos of a few of those people in New York You know moving around and all that stuff, right? When they go that yellow drops Like that was that was that song right right because you know what she did Yeah, what she did she really just gathered a community of supporters and then um, you know with the music It just came to a point where everybody just needed a record that was good enough Everything that she was dropping it was just not good enough and then Right bodac yellow was just like ah, she got it. You know on that there it is We want to support you but yeah Yeah, you're not and that's what right to get real with themselves They think all of these people don't necessarily just because they know me for this or like The song like music just might not be good enough and the same way you got some homies You know, you got some homies that know you because they're your homies But they're playing your song consistently. They might play that verse Because you know that you want to check it out. But is it in their actual playlist? You know, I'm right and that's that's how you know That's how you really know if you if your homies Ain't only listening when you're asking them to then that tell that's enough data right there You know, that's all the data you need But a lot of people don't want to confront that data, you know, a lot of people Are not into Looking at that type of data, you know, they want to That's the different curse about, you know music man or art man because it's objective So it's like in one end you can find some people who rock with what you got going on But on another end it prevents people when nobody is accepting it They just tell themselves. Oh man, they sleeping on me when it's right, right, you know, it keeps you from facing Yeah, you know at the end of the day it's objective. But yeah, I think I think it's it's Yeah, it's a double-edged sword because this era everything is so accessible and you could do it on your own But now it made people lazy and made people feel like Um, I'd rather just watch artists that I don't think is that dope get on and then, you know Say hip-hop sucks because they got on, you know, like and it's like no, it's not about It's not about What you're into, you know, it's we live in an era now where it is almost an audience for anything Because it's the internet you can find the people, you know So it's no longer like the 90s where there's these eight rappers and everybody just has to listen to these guys It's now an era where if you just like Wraps about cars. There's probably a rapper out there for you and He could probably sell out a show full of kids that just want to hear wraps about cars Yeah, and you know, you wouldn't ask cars or something. Well, you know You know, like that's the era we in you don't have to be mainstream. That's not the end all anymore Yeah, for real man.  And from that he got an entire school tour Like people just like he's from canada. They start they put them to america's a tour all on that kind of like that subject matter He and yeah, we're interesting niche where you can like you can niche out anything man these days Of course, you might have to figure out how to flip it and flip it again So you can get bigger and bigger because some right small and you might have a lot of ambition, but like look at somebody like, um Like xxx, you know rest in peace In the 90s if I were to say, yo There's a rapper that just wraps like real depressed rhymes and real dark Rhymes you'd be like who would listen to that? But in today's culture, it's like yeah, there's there's hundreds and thousands and millions of kids that just want to hear, you know More depressing dark music You know, there is they're out there and now with internet you can find them you can access them and um, you know Just gear gear yourself towards them. My favorite rapper is tom kennedy, you know, he hasn't had a platinum single. He hasn't had nothing Nothing on the mainstream level that would say like and and nipsy is another one of my favorites who also Just signed to atlantic about a year ago. So it's like After he's gotten already winning. Yeah after years of winning just kicking very niche entrepreneurial, um, you know Gangsta turned businessman raps It was it was that nothing to do with a trap beat and You know, uh singy songy hook and anything that's deemed mainstream today You know, they do what they like to do and there's an audience for it Tom kennedy just makes la music his music is never gonna sound like anything but la ever And and you would think and in the in the label mind you think oh, that's not gonna sell that's not gonna Whatever, but it don't need to look at the streaming numbers. It don't need to Different for a good minute too. Yeah, like I remember back in the day I heard he got in the best buy without a label and stuff like that. I was like, how do you manage to do that?  You know, I'm just I'm on my own I'm gonna do my own thing. You know, that's what I appreciate That's what's up, man. I mean I know you got your hands on a lot of different things, man Is this something else that you know that you do that I don't even know about or um Man like I would say that's really it man. I don't really I rap when I'm drunk, but that's about it I think I think I'm better than any rapper man when I'm drunk Oh Shots right quick man bust the freestyle right, right, right All right, man, like um, give me this thing um I know you mess with Producers and rappers like your brothers a producer Right. How do you move producers throughout the game differently than rappers? Hmm, I would say like the producer game is totally different and and I think um, you know going into like How you say, you know, I watch you how you say like the 20 20 vision I think I was telling my brother the other day I'm like, man. I think um call it drama with like, um You know the mustards and the metros of the world. I think The 2020s is going to be like The crossroad between those type of figures like a dj drama a dj call it and a metro And it mustered and and stuff like that. I think there's going to be like figures Producers that like make albums just like they're an artist, you know what I'm saying? I think like how call it in drama are kind of standalone I think that'll be like a norm in the next decade, you know a producer putting out an album because that's where the money is that You know you you Getting a cut of an artist's money That's that that is what it is but To to put out your own album. That's where you could really see, you know, the real revenue I mean, I like that man because it makes sense to me for me. I've been thinking about this for a good minute Like to me hip hop is in behind in that sense It's been ahead and it innovates in so many different ways even though the young kids today like this For some reason shit on hip hop culture and feel like those themselves with other stuff to feel elevated But like hip hop innovates, but when you talk about the producer Like that's all that edm stuff, right? They they've been having projects and then featuring artists for years And like I remember I discovered this uh producer david gwenna back in Like oh nine ten or something like that I thought uh, because I remember my brother was playing it.  Yeah, and I put them on his other songs. I'm like, yo, bro Uh david voice sound totally different on this song I'm like, bro, it ain't even no man on this song.  Like yeah, this is like dj slash producers Like what are the what do you really actually call them? Yeah when killing the game hip hop It's definitely they it's time for them to get into that And and one thing I tell producers man like a lot of producers nowadays are beat makers We need more producers we need producers producers producers who know You know producers used to play the beat and then have a hook to go with it Now if the if the rapper don't like the hook the rapper don't like the hook, but I'm a pitch to hook You know when when Kanye played lucifer for jay. He said I gotta get my soul, right? You know and then jaystar said, oh, okay. I could kill this. I see what I could do here. So it's like You know like I seen um Somebody tweeted, you know producers gotta be salesmen today. Like and then it's always been like that the great producers The the great producers will play a beat, you know, they there's always that meme of That gift rather of Timbaland, you know doing with Jay-Z doing a you know Like and and that's really how it is you play a beat For somebody like Jay-Z you have to sell the beat you have to like Kind of steer the ship and let them know. Okay. This is this type of out This is what I hear on that a lot of producers today are like emailing beats and you know, whatever Yeah, and this is like that's legit man. That's not a producer I don't like to get on people too much for it. But like if you want to be old school about it Yeah, straight up what you're saying is a producer you look at quincy jones Like the level of goat this dude is in the life. Yeah, we don't know who quincy jones is man Y'all gotta look that man up every the area in culture from michael jackson to fresh prints and different with all that stuff Like man, like there's people like that.  I now see myself on the song with him It's all right And then of course yeah, we in a little bit then they gonna be like, okay, they can trust you, you know I'm saying like drake out was like, oh man. I'ma trust congey with my track. He probably shouldn't have trust on me sound like even like Even like what I'm about to say even like um the classic story of puffin big, you know Big thought big big thought um Unbelievable was this joint. Yeah Big if you ask big he thought unbelievable was the single that is it right there Yeah, puff just had a bigger and better plan. Yeah, and at first big. He thought it was corny Two years later. All it is is visachi this linen that you know, he turned into the playboy He turned into the player. Yep. So it's like Yeah, you have to be able to sell the vision to the artist to to the management to the label Whoever, you know cotton went around to every label and publication playing College dropout, you know and and and you know, you know, you see how he is now he was like that then You know, he we would tell you the video is going to be like this and I'm going to add a quiet here and he would sell it and people would buy it People would buy it. So Yeah, all the greats man. They I think certain things from the past. Um, Aren't aren't exactly over school They just been lost because there's an easier way But the easier way isn't always the way, you know, sometimes people had it right the initial way, you know And and that's one of them things we're like for producers Email, uh, it depreciates you a bit Hey, that's real man. I mean at the end of the day to top of the top. They still got those fundamentals. It's just like basketball Fancy with it, but you know, he's the the best one still got the fundamentals at the same time Yeah, you still gotta put the ball in the hoop. It's still the same game Still the same game Yeah, I think gotta start pushing that a lot more I'm making a point of it in these streets, but like that will be the new era like of producers who like There has to be an uprising of legit producers again I think it's yeah, because it only makes sense in this era, right if you think about the fact that People are just playing albums and they picking the best song out of it. Anyway, so what's the difference for From me an album of five songs all these different artists. They're just gonna pick the single they want anyway Yeah, but that's another thing. Um, that's another thing that you know streaming kind of made like Artists feel like man, why why would I make an album if I could just put singles out? But in reality For certain type of artists an album is the only way to communicate greatness Yes You know like that. It's really the only way like sure nothing but a g thing would have been cool Living on its own, but it was the entire chronic album that made dre dre Wasn't any particular song, you know and same thing with Kanye same thing with puff These were albums that created these legacies all them singles were just Pieces of a larger picture Yep, you know, there's no way that you can paint your story and get people to fully fully invest in one song and who you are Yeah, it's just one song you got no matter how good You gotta like to make them feel invested. It is my background is where I'm from like good kid mad city, right? Like you gotta you gotta bring them into a world and one song is not one world No matter how good the song is I wasn't I I thought Kendrick was great. I thought he was really good I thought he was really good and nothing better than really good And I had a close friend of mine That from 2010 to 2012 was telling me yo this kid is goat level and I was just like goat level you pushing it You know, he's decent though. He's really good. I like him. He's good But when good kid mad city came out, I texted him and apologized real And I say yo I see it my fault It's all there Section 80 didn't quite do this for me, you know and and and the other one before I can't think of the name That makes sense on section 80 because he's still sounding like wane and jay-z on different songs. Yeah, it was like this is good I definitely see that he's really good, but goat level Yeah, yeah Apology It was the art of peer pressure that really made me realize I was like if four songs in I was like, yeah, yeah, this dude is different All right. Hey, well, um Because I know we could go on actually the straight up hip hop for a good many man But when it comes back to you man and what you do Um, I'm gonna really leave them with something valuable in terms of what you got going on or where where do you Feel like artists in terms of where they could connect with the platforms like rap fest I know you said they can reach out to Some writers do their research. Is there anything else like that y'all have going on? Like maybe coming up another event that some artists that might might be We're trying to for 2019.  We really want to be like a cultural um You know just just a pivotal Cultural platform. So, um, you know, we we started in 2014. So we a lot younger than Like a lot of platforms, you know, the only other platforms that like are Really young that are really known is like lyrical lemonade. No jumper. So like um Yeah, we're just you know, we're starting a podcast. We we got one podcast that we're probably going to do a deal with soon um Stuff like that. But as far as artists man, you could reach out to any of the writers reach out to me, you know Russell at the rap fest.com um And you know, I'm I'm receptive, you know, I'm I'm pretty tied up. I won't lie. Um, I'll probably forward it to a writer, but um, Listen to my check when I send it though We I might not I'm gonna keep it 100. I might not but somebody will I can guarantee that You know, somebody absolutely will and um We're we're accessible man. We're not we're not at the point yet where it's like Some some difficult tasks to get on the site, you know If the the difficult part is for the artists to be dope, you know, if the artist is cool They got a solid video or even a solid record Nice artwork nice mixing on the record solid verses and a hook You know, um, we'll we'll we'll take it home Hey, man, artist, that's what you want to get on man You want to get on in these publications before they get big so you add a relationship that they build up You know, I'm saying a lot a lot of people would like You know email complex all day and night and it's like maybe Swiss the strategy of man switch the strategy that's not working try something else You might be able to get on rap fest Build your audience and didn't get signed out. I don't records. Yeah, you never know man. You're not you never know, man Little bit man. Um, all right. You already told him where they can get you on my terms of the email He said russo at the rap fest calm you want to give your social media to him or anything? Yeah at rusby 13 34 on twitter and instagram But but feel free, you know shoot a dm or whatever we can we can chop it up. Um, yeah, man I give the game for free, but Like like you and I both know man a lot of artists they they um They they're looking for a fast route man. They're looking for some sort of quick Come up and unfortunately The the game has gotten a lot more accessible, but it's it's you still got to do the work Oh, yeah, it's not people lazy, bro. It's some it's gonna be somebody in the comments talking about Yo, man, what's it? What's his instagram? What's his email? Yeah, yeah, that's a guarantee That's a guarantee, man But bet man appreciate you once again Yo, everybody as always if you like this go ahead hit that like button if you like eat mines well sharing if you're not subscribed You know what to do hit that subscribe, but


Hey coach welcome back to our channel. If you're brand new here make sure hit that subscribe button and after you get done watching this video comment below if you have any personal questions for me and Really before we dig into today's video I have an announcement to make if you've been watching our YouTube videos You probably know about this, but recently we launched a mastermind program This is for coaches that are in soccer basketball baseball football pretty much any sport You can think of if you are a private trainer, or you're wanting to start your own private training business I have this group. You can click up here. It's a group that's specialized every single week in this group We will be working together hand-in-hand and when you click on that button up there you can learn all about the program It's very affordable and again This is my way of giving back to you and this is my way of helping you grow your business every single week And I know in today's video if you searched on YouTube how to start a sports program I want to go again every video I like to go very deep into how to get started what to do and I like to give clear actionable steps and if you're brand new and You want to learn how to start your own program? This is going to go very step-by-step and the first thing and I think about 10 years ago when I started my own program The number one thing that really held me back was fear of failing And I know that's a real thing from most coaches out there when they want to start something You know they they inside their head they want to do it But then they think of all of the negative things that can happen They think of oh well, what if I lose money or oh, what if I try to do that full time and it doesn't work out And then I have to go get my a different job and the thing that you have to have first is certainty you have to know That what you're about to start is the thing that you're meant to do It's the thing that you need to be doing with your life And that's the thing I realized for me and I made the decision It was you know I'm gonna start this program and I'm gonna go all in with it and there's no option B And I know if you have that mentality it's gonna work for you too But you have to make that decision first and when you make that decision that leads into the second step Which is being very clear on what it is that you are offering and this is a big problem I see with a lot of youth sports programs is they try to offer too many different things at the beginning It's gonna be way easier and better and more profitable for you when you have a specialized niche and I'll give you a good example for me personally if you've watched our YouTube channel you know that I'm a soccer trainer and Because I'm a soccer trainer. I'm not just gonna go coach Every single age group not gonna coach college kids high school kids kids that are three years old and kids that are in middle school I don't do that. I have a very Specific niche that I serve and I only stick to that and that's what I'm known for in my area And if I was known as the guy who could train everyone Then I'm really not known for anything. Okay, so you have to be very specialized and the more specialized you are Again the easier it's going to be for your marketing the the more well-known you are for serving the problem That exists within the niche that you That you want to train. Okay, the next thing that we have to figure out is Really, it's just your marketing and I know I talk about this I say this all the time on my podcast if you haven't listened to podcast Go to the link in the description like scroll down a little bit. You'll be able to see that but I talk about like email marketing and shooting videos and Really just putting yourself out there to your audience over and over and over again So they know who you are what you do and how you can help them and again when you're starting something You have to be able to put yourself out there when you're starting and you don't do that no one knows you like even if you build a website and you have all these cool shirts and You try to you know showcase what you do on Instagram just by putting photos No one cares about that like no one's gonna care about what you're doing until they know how much like you actually care about helping them And that to me is very key and when you are When you start to learn marketing and you get good at that even if you start from scratch That again is going to help you get more traction with your business All right, the next thing that we have to think about is with your program and I've talked about this in other videos but if you create a positive reputation and You are well known for helping kids directly and I'm talking about Like with private training or group training You can have a personal relationship with these kids and you can mentor them and when you have a good reputation for that You become known as the expert in your area You're not just this guy who does private training or group training And you have this factory of players that come in and out of your program if you do that you can't charge that much money and you're actually going to be chasing clients when you have a program that's like Designed to give one-on-one help and these kids are Receiving help in a way that they can't get anywhere else then you can charge more money All right, and you can create a category of one business, which is something I talk about non-stop All right, so if you put these pieces together, all right You can create build and scale out a youth sports training program from scratch And if you have any questions for me comment below Click up here if you want to learn more about our mastermind program. I can't wait to help you out I'll see you soon You


The title of this course is Introduction to Statistics for Muslims. The goal of the course is to present the material of an introductory and graduate first course in statistics to an audience of Muslim students. In this first lecture, our goal is to explain why it makes a difference that this course is targeted for Muslim students. Upon hearing this title, the first question that would occur to everyone is why do we restrict the audience to be Muslims? Why not teach statistics to everyone? The goal of this first lecture is to answer that question. So, basically the answer is that Islam has a unique approach to teaching and learning. And actually what we consider knowledge as Muslims is quite different from what is regarded as knowledge in the West. Our Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. was sent as a teacher and he was the best of teachers. So, he not only gave us the most perfect and complete message of Allah, but he also taught us how to teach and how to learn. All of this methodology is often in conflict with Western methodology of education and the Western approach to teaching and learning. One of the most fundamental differences is that a Muslim assumes the validity of the teachings of Islam without any question. As opposed to this, in the West, the only things which are admissible are those which are based on observations and knowledge. And one cannot cite the Quran or Hadith or universally accepted Islamic principles to support any idea in a Western tradition. So, the second misconception which has been created by the secular orientation of Western education is that there are areas of knowledge which have no relation to religion. In Islam, all our activities in life, whether it is teaching or learning or anything else, all of it is subject to our Deen. And in fact, all of our life is meant only for worship. So, there can be no realm of our life which is separate from Deen, which is independent of Deen and which makes no reference to Deen. This is entirely opposed to the fundamental idea of secular thought that there are two compartments of life. One compartment is an area which is completely independent of Deen, about which Deen has nothing to say. And there is another compartment which is our private personal life in which Islam has guidance for us to offer. So, we reject this secular idea that there are domains of knowledge which have nothing to do with Islam and that already differentiates what the Islamic approach to education is from a secular approach. Islam describes very clearly the purpose of our life and asks us to take all actions in order to achieve this purpose. According to Western secular teaching, life was created by an accident and there is no purpose, there is no meaning of existence. So, this question cannot be considered within a Western educational approach. So, in Islamic approach, you must think carefully about what is the goal of our life and how this education will help us to achieve this goal. So, the first thing is to understand the purpose of life and one of these purposes is mentioned under the word Ahsan, which means to live as if we are aware of the presence of God. The Qur'an says explicitly that man and jinn were created only for worship and that Allah Ta'ala created life and death to see who does the best of all deeds. So, all our actions must be worship and furthermore, we should try to do them in the best of all possible ways. Both of these things are possible only for a Muslim audience because only a Muslim audience can study in a way that it becomes worship and only Islam tells us how to do this studying in such a way that it becomes a good deed. So, how can we study statistics in such a way that it becomes an act of worship? In accordance with the Hadith, it is essential that our intention should be purely for the sake of the pleasure of Allah. So, we have to seek to fulfill the orders of Allah. The Qur'an says, instructs the Prophet to make dua Rabbizidni ilma. O Allah, increase me in my knowledge. And since we are ordered to emulate the Prophet, so this action applies to us as well. Since Allah Ta'ala has asked us to make dua for increase in knowledge, so it obviously follows that seeking knowledge is something which is desirable and it's part of our Deen. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has also described knowledge as a great gift from Allah. The Prophet Muhammad SAW himself was sent as a teacher. So, acquiring knowledge is definitely an important and essential ingredient of Islam. Now, what is the purpose of acquiring knowledge? Well, there are many purposes which are valid and recommended. Among them, an important one is that man has the potential to be the best of creation.  In order to learn how to be the best of creation, we have to acquire knowledge. Now, one portion of the knowledge is the eternal portion which is the Quran and the Hadith. But there is also another portion of knowledge which we must struggle to acquire. And this we might term as local knowledge. So, for example, Allah Ta'ala has given us the order to defend the boundaries of Islam. And these are required by our Deen. But how to do this may change from time to time. For example, there was a time when the knowledge of castles and cannons would have been an important part of how to defend a city. And as such, acquiring this knowledge would have been worship, if it was done with the intention of protecting the lives of Muslims. So, that of course is local and temporary knowledge. It is not eternal. It was suitable for its time period and it is no longer suitable. So, this is just to explain how some portions of knowledge that we acquire may be only of temporary value, but may still be part of Deen, even though they are not explicitly taught to us in the Quran and the Hadith. The Quran and the Hadith provide us with general principles and implementing them in today's world requires our acquisition of knowledge of importance and relevance for local circumstances, which is not part of the Quran and the Hadith. For example, the Quran orders us to be concerned about the feeding of the poor and to spread it. Now, how to feed the poor? This might require today understanding agriculture, understanding what Monsanto is doing in terms of its genetic engineering, how to produce better crops. Many other things might involve understanding current politics and how distribution of food takes place. And many contemporary facts which are not part of Quran and Hadith, nonetheless, in order to implement this order of feeding the poor, we must acquire this knowledge and if this knowledge is acquired for the purpose of implementing this order, then this will become worship. Accordingly, Quran tells us that it is not the blood or the flesh of the sacrifice which reaches Allah, but rather the spirit with which it is done. The enthusiasm with which we seek knowledge will have an important effect on whether or not this is the best of deeds as an amala. Accordingly, the Quran and the Hadith contain a substantial amount of encouragement for us to seek knowledge. The Quran itself starts, I mean the first revelation that was given to the Prophet Muhammad SAW was, I was with Allah from the Shaitan of the regime, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Iqraa bismi rabbika ladhi khalaq, khalaq al-insana min alaq, Iqraa warabbuk al-akram wal-lazi, alam bil qalam, alam al-insana ma lam yalam. So, this Quran is telling us to read and is praising Allah for his characteristic that he gave, he taught man that which he did not know by the means of the pen. There are very important motifs that are being discussed here which are detailed in the written lecture that accompanies this. These slides. So, I will pass over it here. The Quran teaches us to pray for an increase in knowledge. According to Hadith, we should seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. It is mentioned that the alim or the one who knows is superior to the abid, the one who worships. Like the moon is superior to the stars. So, the seeking of knowledge is very much encouraged by Islam. It is again mentioned that the ink of a scholar is like the blood of a martyr. So, Islam contains very strong encouragements to seek knowledge. The coming of Islam about fourteen and a half centuries ago brought a revolution to the planet. At that time, the Arabs were the most backward people living on the planet. At the same time, there were four civilizations which had achieved great success. Great advances, the Greeks, the Romans, the Persians, the Chinese, the Egyptians had philosophy, culture, literature, technologies. And many accomplishments. Arabs were backwards in ignorance, Bedouin, living very simple lives. They were illiterate. They were quite savage, burying their daughters alive and killing each other for minor battles. Islam, the knowledge that was imparted to them by Islam led them to world leadership. And Muslims or the Islamic civilization was dominant on the planet for a thousand years. So, it was prophesied that Islam came as a stranger and will become a stranger. And it appears today that Muslims have lost this knowledge which led them to world leadership. So, we have to re-acquire the principles of learning which led Muslims to world leadership fourteen centuries ago as these principles are just as valid today as they were when they first came. And they have the same potential today as they did in the period of the Jahlia. So, in order to create this revolution, we must change our conception of knowledge. We must realize that the purpose of knowledge is self-purification. How we can become better people? It is spiritual advance and transformation. How we can grow as spiritual beings? Again, this concept has been lost in the West. It is just like an adult person has knowledge which he cannot give to the child. It requires certain amount of growth before the child has the maturity and the capability of understanding certain types of knowledge that mature adults have. In the same way, the spiritual growth creates a kind of knowledge which it is impossible to impart to those who do not have sufficient spiritual development. So, it was the acquisition and the transmission of the spiritual knowledge which changed the world. So, in our acquiring knowledge, we must make the intention to achieve this transformation for ourselves and to impart it to others as this is the process which will revolutionize the world. Western views on the purpose of an education are radically different from Islamic views. Accordingly, the methodology of learning and teaching is also radically different. We summarize some of the main differences in this slide. First of all, in the West, education is valued according to the amount of money that it can make. At the moment in Stanford, for example, while there is a huge boom in the number of students seeking admissions and engineering and many other fields which earn a lot of money are doing very well at exactly the same time. Enrollment in humanity is declining. The professors of the humanities have gotten together to combat this decline. But the main idea for how to combat is to prove that with a degree in humanities, you can also make money. They do not seek to promote humanities as an alternative of importance in and of itself. As opposed to this, in Islam, we seek knowledge for spiritual advances and for personal transformation and for learning how to change the world for the better. These are rather different from learning for the sake of making money. We seek an education in order to serve Allah and one of the ways to serve Allah is by serving the creation of Allah because all of the creation is called as the family of Allah in one narration. As opposed to this, in the West, knowledge and education is a means to career advancement. It's a means to earning profit from the ignorance of others. It's a mean of acquiring fame, something which is strictly prohibited in the Islamic tradition. According to Islamic traditions, learning for the sake of fame or learning for the sake of disputing elders and respected seniors is actually prohibited. Islam teaches us to concentrate on acquiring useful knowledge and to avoid useless knowledge. There are several prayers of the Prophet Muhammad to this effect where he seeks useful knowledge from Allah and seeks protection from useless knowledge. In contrast to this, in the West, all of the knowledge is considered useful because there is no purpose. Useful or useless is always according to purpose, so knowledge is useful if it helps us to achieve a certain purpose and useless if it cannot help us to achieve that purpose. However, if there is no purpose to learning as the Western secular tradition holds, then all knowledge is on equal grounds. Similarly, in the West, the approach to knowledge and the attitude towards knowledge is that one should be a neutral and detached observer. It is held in the Western tradition that you cannot be engaged because that will cause bias in your acquisition of knowledge. However, Islam tells us that we must be engaged. Islam tells us that if we see oppression or injustice, then we must seek to change this. We cannot watch as idle bystanders. We cannot remain neutral and detached. Furthermore, Islam teaches us that it is in the process of the struggle to change the world for the better that Allah will provide us with the necessary knowledge. So, engagement and struggle is actually part of the methodology for the acquisition of knowledge. This is directly opposed to Western ideas of neutral and detached observation. The struggle for justice and the struggle for eliminating oppression is important in Islam. We must acquire knowledge for this purpose or for some other purpose which is sanctioned by religious teachings. We cannot acquire knowledge just for the sake of idle curiosity. In the West, it is considered that everyone is selfish. So, if we try to engage in the struggle with the world, then we will automatically be biased and we will be biased towards our own point of view. In contrast, Islam teaches us a very high standard of justice. It says that we must be just even to our enemies and we cannot favor our friends or kin. Therefore, we must maintain justice and be just even while we are engaged in the struggle to change the world for the better. This creates a dramatic contrast with Islamic methodology for teaching. As already mentioned, the Western conception of what is knowledge differs radically from the Islamic conception. According to dominant Western theories, knowledge consists of that which is objective, observable by everybody and something which commands unanimous and universal consent. In particular, normative statements, morals, social norms are not part of knowledge. This is because morality is determined by what whatever the majority agrees to or whatever the society decides upon by mutual consent. That is moral. But such a thing obviously is not something which is determined by observations and by logic. Therefore, it is not part of knowledge or scientific knowledge according to Western theories of knowledge. As opposed to this, Islam considers the most fundamental type of knowledge to be moral knowledge which has been granted to mankind by Allah Ta'ala. And it has also been embedded into the hearts of human beings. So values are a most important part of human knowledge. This fact value distinction and the idea that facts are the important part of knowledge and values are meaningless is at the heart of Western theories of knowledge and therefore is also part of the methodology of education. This results in several problems with Western methods of teaching which are not shared by Islamic methods. For one thing, according to Western theories, the scientists are only supposed to observe facts. Since norms and values are not part of science, scientists in their capacity as scientists don't invoke normative considerations in the study of society or particles. So, for example, the inventor of the atom bomb was just doing science and the fact that this atom bomb might be used to kill people was not part of his concern. That is something that others who make value-based decisions or policy decisions are responsible for. In Islam, all participants in an act share the responsibility for it. So the person who witnesses a transaction of interest is also equally responsible in the social consequences of the deed. The statistical consultant in an Islamic society will have to ask the question, what is my statistical analysis going to be used for? As opposed to this, the statistical consultant in the West will only be concerned with interpreting the data in an objective way without any reference to any normative implications. So this creates a great difference in our responsibility as statisticians. If somebody is going to use our data analysis to do some injustice or oppression, for example, suppose that we believe that ethically, laborers should not be exploited and somebody asks us to do a data analysis which shows that laborers are not being exploited. When, in fact, we believe that they are, then we need to refuse to do this because we will share the responsibility for the outcome. In addition to this practical matter, there is also the theoretical matter that, in fact, according to Islam, the most important type of knowledge is moral knowledge. And this is the type of knowledge that was given to the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. And this is the type of knowledge which revolutionized the world. In our point of view, in the Islamic point of view, we choose data because it is relevant to our moral concerns. Data is not objectively given to us in advance. Rather, we look at those aspects of the data which are relevant to solving issues that are of importance to us, where the important concerns are defined by Islamic context. According to Western theories, facts are objective and opinions are unimportant, where opinions also includes moral ideas and values. So there is a very big difference between Western ideas of knowledge and Islamic ideas of knowledge. I have shown elsewhere that, in fact, it is impossible to do as the West suggests and study purely facts without any reference to values because the way we select the facts and the way we present them will automatically represent value judgments. So what the West says overtly about the fact value distinction is not actually followed in their own analyses. And I have shown in different papers how values are hidden and embedded in Western theories which appear to have a factual appearance. But this topic is too complex for our first lecture. References are available in the write-up for this lecture. Because our Prophet Muhammad SAW was sent as a teacher and he is the perfect model for us, so Islamic law or Sharia contains a lot of information about the process of teaching and learning. From these we can derive rules for conduct for teachers and students. These are so extensive that it is impossible to summarize them here. We will just highlight a few important issues which differentiate Islamic methodology for teaching from Western methodology. As far as the teacher is concerned, he is to regard the students as precious according to Hadith. People are minds of gold and silver. That is, if we develop them properly, then rare and unexpected treasures will be discovered in the process. So the teacher has to value the potential of each student and treat them with respect and courtesy. We must invite and facilitate learning. We must value the time of our students and make sure that what we are teaching them is of value and use. And we must provide them with useful knowledge. This is a rather difficult requirement. It will require doing research because in the West they do not differentiate between useful and useless knowledge. So anything that you take from a book and teach, it is automatically useful. However, for the Muslim teacher, he must consider how this knowledge that I am imparting will help the student, not just to pass the exam for the course, but in his life. This will often be difficult to do because this is something which is not actually part of the Western texts. For example, if somebody is teaching labor theory and he teaches the student about the effect of labor unions, the issue is only relevant to the U.S. economy. So the teacher must consider that this is not of use to the student. So he must consider how to teach the issue in the context of whichever country he is in and whether or not it applies. He cannot make the excuse that this is what's in the book, so I will just teach it because the time of his students is precious and he must try to make the material relevant, important and useful for their daily lives. This will often require research on the part of the teacher, but it is part of his responsibilities as a teacher to do this research. Similarly, Islam provides us with guidance to students on how they should seek knowledge. In particular, we must seek knowledge with humility knowing that knowledge belongs only to Allah and he gives it to those to whom he wishes to give it. So we humbly ask Allah, request Allah to provide us with the knowledge that we need. We seek knowledge in obedience to the commands of Allah who has asked us to search for knowledge. We must not seek knowledge for status or pride or fame or to learn how to argue with others. These are specifically prohibited by Islamic teachings. We must seek knowledge with enthusiasm and accept any effort or sacrifice or struggle, understanding that this is a great treasure of Allah. In fact, the Ayat Waladina Jahadu Finaalina Diyannam Subalina suggests that those who have the knowledge will be given to us in the process of the struggle to acquire the knowledge of Allah or to become closer to Allah. So knowledge is very action oriented in the Islamic conception. It is not passively learned by studying books, but it is actively learned by engaging in the process of struggling with the world in the manner desired by Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala and in the manner demonstrated by the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Acquisition of knowledge has a central place in Islamic teachings. As the indicated Ayat shows, we should feel gratitude to Allah for providing us with knowledge of the things that we did not know and that this is a tremendous favor upon us. Separately, it is mentioned that if we are grateful to Allah for His blessings, then He will increase His blessings upon us. So this is also a methodology for getting more of this blessing from Allah. It has been mentioned that one of the key ingredients in the rise of Muslims to world power was the thirst for knowledge that was created by Islamic teachings among the early Muslims. As discussed earlier, Islam places great emphasis on applying the knowledge that we have learned to solve the problems and this action oriented approach distinguishes Islamic approach to knowledge from western approaches. As the Hadith mentioned on the slide states, it is only if we act upon it that knowledge becomes useful, this places a burden on both the teacher and the student. The teacher is responsible to make sure that the knowledge he is imparting is of the kind which is practical and useful. And the student must make the intention that he will use the knowledge acquired to serve the Ummah in the best possible way. To summarize, the goal of this lecture was to show that the approach to teaching and learning for Muslims is radically different from that currently in use in the West. For the most fundamental thing, the act of teaching and the act of learning is an act of worship and therefore in performing these tasks we must be guided by the Sunnah of our Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam who was the best of teachers. To put it in more concrete terms, in the West the idea of secular thinking developed in the past few centuries that there were some areas of life and some areas of knowledge which were independent of religion. In those areas, such as economics, physics, chemistry, mathematics, etc., religion has no role to play. This is a big mistake. This is not correct. According to Islam, all of the knowledge belongs to Allah. The Qur'an mentions the forging of steel as a knowledge given by Allah to human beings, one of His prophets. And so we cannot accept the secular idea of the separation of domains of knowledge. Once we realize that all knowledge is integrated and there is only one type of knowledge, then it is necessary that Muslims, when we study any field, we use the Islamic rules for education. So we have to learn statistics in a way that our acquiring the knowledge and our use of the knowledge will be pleasing to Allah. Exactly how this affects the subject matter itself will become clear as we progress through the lectures.