Adam Torres and Elani Kay discuss Mega Mix Expo.
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Show Notes:
Listen to Mega Mix Expo coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Elani Kay, CEO at CEITA TV & Talent Agency Guide, explore the upcoming Megamix expo.
About Elani Kay
Elani Kay is a Mother of 3 young boys, an entrepreneur, a mommager to her oldest son who is an actor, a transformational life coach, International best selling author, and philanthropist.
Elani Kay is an expert energy life coach who works with clients that need direction, support, healing, motivation, & more. Her transformative coaching style allows clients to transform their lives with a collaborative effort of working through challenges, healing, setting goals, & putting in the work.
About CEITA TV
CEITA TV NETWORK is a network for all and is an emerging network based in Burbank, CA distributing and streaming original and licensed programming.
Content from CEITA TV NETWORK comes from creators who share their gifts and inspire the world through the power of entertainment, comedy, reality, drama, documentary, & more across multiple platforms including: web-series, TV series, film, and digital video.
About Talent Agency Guide
The Talent Agency Guide is a comprehensive directory book containing essential industry and contact information for a wide range of SAG-AFTRA and ATA/NATR talent agencies across the United States. We have gathered and organized over one hundred signatory talent agencies that can help you reach the next level of your acting career.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today I have Ilani Kay on the line and she’s CEO over at CEITA TV and Talent Agency Guide.
Ilani, welcome to the show. Hi, how are you? Thank you so much for having me. All right. Well, excited to have you on the show. And we’re definitely going to be talking about empowering women and helping them thrive in a professional sometimes male dominated environment. So I want to get into that. I want to get into the work you’re doing over at CEITA TV and Talent Agency Guide.
And just to get us kicked off, I know that you’re an ambassador for the Megamix Expo. I’ve been working on that, on that story and bringing it to my audience now for maybe the last month or so. And for everybody that’s watching, or if you’re a first time listener and you haven’t heard me say it yet, Definitely head on over to megamixexpo.
com. Check it out, check out the event. I think there’s still some booth spaces available and it’s going to be a lot of fun. I’ll be there on site doing a bunch of interviews live and just visiting all the vendors and the booths and getting to you know, get out and about in the community and see what.
going on. And Ilani Kay is going to be there as well. And you’re an ambassador. So Ilani, maybe start by telling us a little bit more about how you got connected with the Expo. And is this your first year? Have you done it before? Like, give us a little bit of the backstory. Yeah, so I actually had the opportunity to meet Tony through Rossell Cooks, who he actually was a previous guest on your show.
And so he introduced me because I also do kind of event production and things like that. And so he wanted to kind of bring me into the fold. And we are actually talking about something that. Maybe an extension of mega mix. So it might be something like a music festival coming up. So we won’t talk too much about that, but that’s kind of, you know, brewing.
And so I had also the opportunity to meet Tony in person at a recent event at Chase Bank. So that was pretty awesome. And so when we were talking a little bit more about how I can get involved more. Cause this will be my first year attending. You know, so he offered for me to be an ambassador, to help promote and share and I just love really kind of what Megamix is all about, and it’s so important to support, all levels of business.
And that’s really actually my background too, as well as I’ve always wanted to support, support small business owners and entrepreneurs, so. Now, have you, always been an entrepreneur yourself, or I’m just curious, like, , your background, personally, did you always have that in your blood, or?
I, you know what, I did. When I was 18 years old, I was scouted by a network marketing individual. And so the network marketing world, I believe it’s kind of like your crash course into actually having your own business because, you know, they take care of all the things that you would typically have to figure out yourself.
and so through the personal development and all the things they kind of like push you through, it made me. Like have this sort of motivation and drive to really want to determine how much money can I make, right? So I did that while I was in college and I kept thinking more so about making money versus being in college So and I really you know, I believe that being in college is a choice It is definitely a personal choice.
And so I decided to you know, leave college and pursue more entrepreneurial goals So yeah, I mean I think it, came from me because my grandmother, she retired a multimillionaire because she was a business owner. And as a Chinese American woman she was the first to actually run and operate her own financial services business.
So she actually earned the key to the city back in her day. And yeah, so it was being a Chinese American woman. So I just, I think that it definitely came from her. Wow. And on your end, would you say looking at what you’re currently doing we all have challenges. We all have things we go through.
I know one of your passions is to empower women and especially in the professional and entrepreneurial space. Like where’d that come from? So in a few of my books, right, and, you know, thank God we actually hit the international best selling books on a few of the books. Amazing. Congrats.
Yeah, thank you. So these are anthology books to where I was able to share some of my personal experiences and personal stories. And so I am a survivor of domestic violence. And then I also Was a caregiver to as well. And so through these like personal challenges and things like that, I literally was testifying in court as a victim through the actual criminal courts while purchasing a business and I had to kind of shift from, you know, I don’t like to call myself a victim, but I don’t want to take that from anyone else that does resonate with their experiences and being in that space of healing.
But as far as me personally, like, I didn’t always wanted to embrace that label, but I did have to be a victim while I was testifying in court. But then at the same time, I was been going to, you know, corporate meetings, being in the conference room, signing papers. And purchasing a business and then having to put on my CEO hat at the same time.
And so I really wanted to kind of just, you know, like encourage and be able to share with other women that, you know, anything is possible. And so it took me a while to really kind of. Come into this sort of like niche space, like how you had mentioned earlier about so my new sort of niche for this year is the emphasis encouraging women to thrive in male dominated professional spaces.
And so that came about from just me having to just deal with and work with so many men. I did start in corporate and I did work for a clear channel, which is called I heart radio now. So that was the world that I, you know, did come from as well. And then now being in Hollywood, being in entertainment, being in an entertainment space for music, TV, film, and events.
Just working with a lot of men and also having them business partners. I really felt like that, that this was an important, important topic, especially for, you know, female and women entrepreneurs, I think it’s I don’t want to say like it’s a gift, but I was asking myself, what am I actually naturally really good at?
And that was the answer to that question. So talk a little bit more about CEITA TV and Talent Agency, Gatley. Tell us a little bit more about the businesses. Oh, yes, so see the TV is a network.
It started out as a multi channel network, and it’s available on the mobile application is there to be and see the TV. We put out basically, like, TV, film, documentary type stuff. But we also own a subsidiary company called frenzy broadcasting. So frenzies are active TV, film and event production company.
And we also have a radio show called the after party radio show, and it’s syndicated all across the U. S. So, this is like my. Fun stuff, you know, so I’m getting to like produce podcast shows like yourself and reality TV documentaries and things like that. So we also last year signed a distribution deal with big M entertainment.
They’re located on Sony pictures lot. So there’s a lot of big things brewing under seated TV. So I’m very proud of that. As just being kind of a person that moved to Los Angeles from Northern California because my oldest son was an actor, and he, hit some pretty hefty goals early on, and he was a must join a SAG actor actor, and so he became a part of some.
six months and book national commercials and then also network television shows and things like that. And so coming out here and not knowing anybody and then just through meeting people, the right people and going through some, you know, I think Los Angeles has the, like a right of passage for you to get.
screwed over at least one time by somebody. And only one. No, I know. Right. But I think it’s like you’re one. Wow. You’re blessed. I know. It’s if you survive, you know, and you have what it takes you know, and then, you know, you just get in the right circles and, and I really feel that, when. You are making moves and you are doing things you do end up actually like kind of discovering that it’s the same circles of people that kind of all know each other.
And so so yeah, so that’s really what like helped me to really grow because just like even the caliber of people from the A list celebrities just. All the different people that I’ve been able to meet just after coming here and not knowing anybody. And I’ve literally been in L. A. for only about nine years.
I was going back and forth from Northern California to Southern California for about like a year and a half. But yeah, so I am very proud of everything that we’ve accomplished. And so with that, the other company it’s still in the realm of entertainment. It’s called talent agency guide. And so my business partner and I, he was someone that I was working with prior to me moving to Los Angeles, and he was actually coaching my son with acting because he was a child actor, and so we created.
This company for working and aspiring actors. And so we provide everything from A to Z from tools to coaching to Books, we have a book and classes So whether it’s like online classes group classes one on one classes and even like as far as like the management aspect of things to helping develop you and just giving you the Steps from A to Z on what you need to do in order to become a working actor.
So yeah, so talent agency guide is something to as well where we. grew our social media from 8, 000 followers to like over 130, 000 followers organically. So that’s also something too as well that I find to be very important. That’s insane. That’s very, you got to be proud of that one. That’s not easy.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think like as an entrepreneur just in. In general, like, that is something where I feel like even like teaching that and what we did to make that happen is also another valuable, you know, tool and asset. So, so that’s something that, you know, I mean, whether actors now also have to be categorized as entrepreneurs, you know, so.
I think that for sure, everybody, I mean, kind of like everybody, everybody is in some way nowadays, like it’s some form of entrepreneur, you know, even if you have a regular nine to five job creatively people, you know, like. creating their reels, and maybe they can make money online, like, so everyone needs to have some sort of entrepreneurial skill.
Yeah. Well, Ilani, I’ll tell you, it’s been a lot of fun having you on the show today and getting to know more about your background and your experience. That being said for everybody listening, Megamix Expo is coming up. Come out. You’re going to, you’re going to come, right? I know you’re an ambassador, but you’re going to come out and visit, right?
Oh, yes. Absolutely. Yes. All right. I was going to say, come out, see Ilani. I’ll be there too. I’ll be doing some live interviewing and , having some fun and going out there, getting into the community and seeing the going to the booths and all that good stuff. So definitely come out and see us.
It’ll be March 12th, March 13th. You can go to megamixexpo. com to check it out. And Ilani, if somebody wants to follow up and to connect with you or follow you or learn more about any of your businesses or pursuits, how do they do that? So I have everything on my website, it’s elanikay. com, so www. elanikay.com, so you’ll be able to check out more about the different businesses, the books that I have available, the coaching, and then for the women for me to help you really, you know, thrive in these male dominated professional spaces.
So which I look forward to working with women this year on. Perfect. And for everybody watching, just so you know, we’ll definitely put some of those links in the show notes so you can just click on them and head right on over. And speaking to the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button.
This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well. So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Elani, thanks again for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me.