The Hardest Working People Make the LEAST

Rashad Bilal (0:00)

You don't become successful by being lucky. Your book title is Life is Luck.

What does that mean?

Troy Millings (0:08)

All right, what that means is this.

Life is 1,000, left turns 1,000, right turns 1,000, U turns, and a lot of the turns are you just flip a coin. You just do it. Now, everybody who is successful, or not everybody, most people who are successful, don't want to say, I was lucky. They want to say, hard work, hard work. Well, here's what I want to tell you about hard work. The hardest working people in America make the least.

Rashad Bilal (0:42)

That's true.

Troy Millings (0:43)

Make the least.

Rashad Bilal (0:44)

That's a fact.

Troy Millings (0:44)

I'm with you. So don't ever, have you ever taken a shovel and tried to dig a hole? You ever done that?

Rashad Bilal (0:55)

No, I haven't.

Troy Millings (0:56)

It's hard. It's like, terrible. Forget it. It's like, and if you have some frost on the ground, you know, you're like, forget it. The hardest work, you know, in the fields, picking strawberries and throwing watermelons, and that's the hardest work in America, and they make the least.

So what I recognize is this. There was a few things that happened in my life that changed everything for me, like Jerry Billings. What if I didn't go to Jerry Billings? What if I hadn't bought it? What would have happened to me? I think I might have still been okay, but would this have happened? I had a big case early in my life. I build these attractions across America called Wonder Works, and they print money, because the houses are turned upside down. When you walk in, you're standing on the ceiling. And I got six of them, and I got no debt, and I make $33 million a year in EBITDA. But guess what? I did the first one in Orlando, I did the second one in Pigeon Forge, I did the third one in Myrtle Beach, and then I did one in Syracuse at a mall, and it's a total disaster. Total disaster.

If I'd done that one first, I might not have done none. I might have just been it.

But I did it in Orlando. Sometimes it's just that, it's not that your idea was bad, or your location was bad, your city was bad, or you didn't have enough capital. And so, there's so many of confluence of events that make, and if I had to say to you guys, tell me the luckiest, I'll ask you, what's the luckiest things that have happened to you in this world that you're in?

Rashad Bilal (2:58)

The luckiest thing that's ever happened?

Troy Millings (3:00)

And you're supposed to say I met him, but keep going.

Rashad Bilal (3:02)

That should be at the top of my list. Well, let me say this though. Let me say this, because I'm gonna answer that question.

Troy Millings (3:11)

I'm gonna tell you something. I'm glad you don't live in Orlando, because you two would be, I mean.

Rashad Bilal (3:15)

We're hanging out after this.

Troy Millings (3:16)

I'm telling you, I keep watching him laughing at you. I'm like, I gotta separate these two guys.

Rashad Bilal (3:20)

But we've been fortunate a lot. We've been fortunate to run into Steve Harvey, who's become a great mentor to us, business partner. We've been fortunate to start the show in a time where people really was interested. We was fortunate, I hate to say it, but even COVID, because that was an acceleration period for us.

But we also put ourselves in position to be fortunate. It's not like we was just random people on the street and then it's like COVID happened and it's like, oh, now we're gonna become.

Troy Millings (3:49)

Never eat alone, never eat alone. Listen, the way you find luck is you're looking for opportunities. That's in your control. It's not all luck.

If you don't play the game.

Rashad Bilal (4:04)

Gotta be in it to win it.

Troy Millings (4:05)

Yeah, and if you never take a shot on goal, you never make a goal, Wayne Gretzky. So you create the luck. Yeah, yeah.

So I don't want to take too much away from it. Listen, Grant Hill is a partner of mine in some businesses. And one time, I'm from Kentucky, he played at Duke. So we made-

Rashad Bilal (4:25)

I'm a Kentucky fan.

Troy Millings (4:26)

You are? Yeah. Dude, how'd that happen?

Rashad Bilal (4:30)

90s, I grew up just watching Jamal Mashburn and Travis Ford.

Troy Millings (4:35)

Oh yeah.

Rashad Bilal (4:35)

And that was it.