In this episode, we talk with our friend from Dallas and CEO of "Stay True", Julian Peoples. JP discusses having the confidence to reinvent yourself after already being established in another career, getting to witness special moments while doing Day-to-Day Management for PARTYNEXTDOOR and following his gut to start his own label "Stay True" where he can develop artists and build a brand from the ground up.

In this episode, we dive mainly into the topic of jealousy & envy. We discuss the difference between the two words, which are in fact quite different.

Throughout our lives, we've handled these emotions differently. I myself (Troy), used to get extremely jealous. Now, after enough experience with jealousy, I think I've sort of learned how to not place enough value on the emotion. Yet, I suffer from envy.. Payne discusses his battles with himself and going after what he thinks he wants vs. what he wants and the contribution that those thoughts can have on his envy. 

We all probably lie in some fashion whether we know it or not. In this episode, we talk about ourselves as liars and our relationship with this slippery action.

On our 7th episode we welcome the founder of Surf Ghana - Sandy Alibo. Surf Ghana is an incredible collective that uses the practice of extreme sports as a driver for diversity in education, social inclusion, and the empowerment of the youth. Sandy's been able to start this organization after identifying an opportunity within Ghana that she felt needed real attention and exposure. Through the work of her collective, she’s been able to galvanize creatives in Ghana around Skateboarding and Surfing. About 5 years in, they’ve accomplished skate tours throughout Ghana, occupy a Skate House where the collective has been able to gather & tourists have been able to visit, and are building the Freedom Skatepark in Accra with partners Daily Paper, Virgil Abloh, and others. The skatepark is 1350 square feet and also functions as a workspace and social hub to the creative youth in Ghana. Most importantly though, through the collective they've been able to cultivate a real community that lifts it's members up mentally, physically and financially and is pushing the future of Ghana forward.

We had the pleasure of talking with Lola Plaku. Her journey in the music business is filled with diversity at its core. Lola was born and raised in Albania until she was 13 before moving to Toronto where she was able to dive into a multi-cultural city and find her footing within the music business by interviewing some of the biggest names in Hip-Hop. She's continued over and over again to scale her business by genuinely helping artists and their teams. Now living between Toronto - New York and running Lola Media Group (a project consultant/advisor agency) and Girl Connected (a community built to help connect Women in the music, entertainment & creative arts industry) Lola has been able to successfully wrap all of her experience into her companies to continue driving artists and their teams further while also helping the future of the music industry.

Welcome to the 5th episode of Success Aches. We were brainstorming some conversation topics and when I said we should talk about our “ego’s”, we realized immediately how little we understand the role that it plays in our lives. It’s scary to think about how often our biggest enemies can be our own selves yet we’re usually unaware that that is the case. In this episode, we examine how our ego’s have misguided us and try to figure out whether they are really necessary at all.

On this week’s episode, former University of Texas and NFL Alumni Lamarr Houston joins us to talk about his journey. From growing up in Northern California where he was constantly moving in with other families, playing high school football in Colorado, getting recruited by the University of Texas, being drafted to the Oakland Raiders, signed by the Chicago Bears, tearing both of his ACL’s and now focusing on his entrepreneurial endeavors "League Venture" & "EZ Vending", it’s clear that Lamarr has had to overcome major obstacles and maintain a positive mindset to sustain his perseverance.   

It was our pleasure to have him on as our first ever guest. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we enjoyed filming it.

Chapters: 0:00 – Intro to Lamarr Houston 2:30 – The Origin of Lamarr’s Entrepreneurial Mindset 4:30 - Growing Up in San Francisco 4:53 – Moving in with Other Families 8:15 – “I didn’t really realize I was poor until” 9:00 – Knowing You’re Going to the League 10:01 – Getting Drafted by his Hometown 11:19 – Lamarr’s Athleticism 12:40 – Choosing the University of Texas  14:38 – Switching from DE to DT 16:37 – Choosing Football Over Grades 18:45 – Always an Entrepreneur  19:53 - Mobile Veterinarian 22:05 – Motivated to be Independent 22:43 – The Underdog 24:52 – Getting to the League 28:23 – National Championship & Draft Prep 33:30 – NFL Locker Room Culture 35:06 – Playing in Oakland 35:39 – Leaving for Chicago 36:15 – The NFL is a Business Pt. 1 39:03 – First Torn ACL / “Houston We Have a Problem” 43:04 - Motivated to Come Back Better 45:22 – Second Torn ACL / Getting Rushed Back 46:39 – NFL is a Business Pt. 2 47:53 – NFL Business Bootcamps @ Stanford, Michigan, Notre Dame & Miami  52:50 – Leveraging Pro Status for “What’s Next” 53:59 – League Ventures & EZ Vending 56:08 – Contactless Transactions Through EZ Vending 59:03 – Servicing the Cannabis Industry 1:01:26 – Machines in the Market Right Now 1:02:20 – Marketing Opportunities within the Space 1:03:26 – Football Players and Cannabis 1:06:53 – Conclusion

Links: 

LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/SuccessAches​​

League Ventures - https://www.leagueventure.com/

EZ Vending - https://www.ezvending.com/

Lamarr Houston Injury & Highlights - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoW4XqHL1eQ

Kyle Ramirez (Producer & Editor) - https://www.instagram.com/untitled.vibe/?hl=en

Ananymoso (Music) - https://www.instagram.com/ananymoso/?hl=en

Welcome to the 4th episode of Success Aches. We’ve both been thinking a lot about who we are as “men” and how our ideas of masculinity and “manliness” have tried to define us and how we view our relationships. This is a topic that we plan on diving into more throughout the show as we continue to explore who we are and our experiences.

Welcome to the 3rd episode of Success Aches where we cover our “Journey Managing Tory Lanez”. We wanted to discuss our personal and shared experiences during our time with Tory. Payne spent 10 years working for Tory and Troy spent 5. We were each responsible for a variety of roles in his career that helped teach us about the music business and what working with an artist is about. As that professional chapter has recently come to an end, we took this opportunity to look back on some memorable moments & lessons we’ve learned from it that we’ll carry into our next adventures.  

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Welcome to the Intro episode of Success Aches. In this episode we dive into some topics including Payne’s football journey that started in Garland, Texas and continued on to the University of Texas, how meeting J. Cole got him started in the music business and some highlights from his journey managing Tory Lanez, including becoming a writer on the album Chixtape 5. We also dive into Troy’s career journey which includes fighting through rejection to get a job at the world’s largest talent agency – WME, his transition into managing Tory Lanez and now venturing into other music endeavors. Anecdotes about the power within rejection, persistence & when it's time to move on from interpersonal relationships are shared as well.