Caribana weekend in Toronto wrapped up with a networking event for the ages.

Earn Your Leisure (EYL) hosted the free event at Transmission Studios in Toronto's Old Town neighbourhood, welcoming hundreds of entrepreneurs, decision-makers, and executives in one room for an evening of conversations, connections, and exchange.

Held with M5V Developments and Build Up Dev Co. founder Priscilla Facey, Rashad Bilal, Troy Millings, and 19 Keys (Jibrial Muhammad) took the stage and encouraged the audience to build relationships to grow their businesses.

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“I want to thank Toronto. This is the overwhelming support we get every single time we come up here and we don’t take it for granted,” Bilal told the crowd. “This was more important for us that doing a lecture because often you build fortunes off relationships. And a lot of times in our community, we don’t properly know how to communicate with each other. We don’t know how to network, we don’t know how to build relationships, but that’s going to take you a lot further oftentimes. So, it’s about fostering positive environments with like-minded people you can build with.”

The group discussed topics in AI, tech, real estate and finance and encouraged people to stay curious and focused on their growth, much like Earn Your Leisure’s Market Mondays appearance for two sold-out shows in Toronto in April. Bilal, Millings and 19 Keys also discussed branding and marketing tips, providing value, using social media, and creating global content.

They also recalled their journey from relatively unknown to international recognition. Bilal and Millings started the “Earn Your Leisure” podcast in 2019 to bridge the gap between financial literacy and pop culture. They recognized the lack of accessible information about personal finance and investing in the Black community and sought to fill that gap with their platform. The podcast gained rapid popularity due to its informative yet entertaining approach and quickly gained a substantial following.

In 2021, EYL held its first Invest Fest, an in-person experience that combines investing, entrepreneurship, pop culture, and entertainment in a festival setting. The group followed up with a more significant event in 2022, and now, expect tens of thousands to pack the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta from Aug. 25-27.

Among topics to be discussed this year are investing, crypto, real estate, estate planning, taxes, stocks, insurance, content creation and more. Some notable guests and speakers include rap mogul Diddy, billionaire Robert F. Smith, Steve Harvey, Jeezy, and the EYL team, including 19 Keys, agent Rich Paul, Steve Stoute, and The Master Investor Ian Dunlap.

“We started from humble beginnings with a couple of iPhones and no start-up money, and within five years, we were able to build one of the fastest-growing media companies in the world and come and do events internationally. This should be a level of inspiration and motivation for you,” Bilal said of being in the room. “If we could do it, you could do it as well. We didn’t have any tremendous advantage. We didn’t have any tremendous industry insight to help us, but we used technology to unlock these doors. Four years ago, there was none of this.

“I want to come back here in five years and do this at a football stadium. I want to see hundreds of millionaires and hundreds of new entrepreneurs and hundreds of real estate investors and hundreds of people investing in the stock market.”

The group also took questions from audience members, which was followed by a singing performance and live music from DJs.