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What is an Entrepreneur? The Truth About Building Something From Nothing · Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant, a
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: production of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, hey, hey,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: it's John Hope Bryant, and this is the Money and
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Wealth Podcast Series, Season 3 on Black Effect Network, on iHeartRadio.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: And thank you very much to everyone who for making
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: this podcast. And this is relevant, really relevant now, saying entrepreneurship,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: making this podcast top 75 in the world, every continent
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: on entrepreneurship and top 200 for business, top 200, 250
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: for business. Likewise, you are engaged and more good stuff
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: is coming to you. More good content for me and
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: us is coming to you. In fact, you're going to
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: start seeing bonus episodes which means you'll get two episodes
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a week here very shortly to enrich your brain, inspire
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  Speaker 1: your spirit, keep you on point, keep you focused on
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the future, particularly in these times where things seem, well,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: a little rough out here. But rainbows only follow storms, people.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first. I
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  Speaker 1: am with you. Tonight, I'm going to unpack something that
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: people talk about and I'm convinced they don't understand, entrepreneurship.
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  Speaker 1: I have a lot of titles. People call me chairman.
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  Speaker 1: People say I'm a business owner. They say I'm a capitalist.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I say that. They say I'm a financial literacy guy.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: They say I'm a housing guy. They say I'm an
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: advisor to presidents and governments. They say I'm an author.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: They say... What? I run nonprofits and then separately I
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: run for-profits. What else? I mean, you get the gist.
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  Speaker 1: But the reality is I'm an entrepreneur. And when people
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  Speaker 1: throw around that title of entrepreneur as if it's an
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  Speaker 1: interchangeable word, I feel a certain kind of way about it.
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  Speaker 1: Because I know what it takes to be a true entrepreneur.
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  Speaker 1: I have a payroll of 400 employees. several million dollars
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: every two weeks. I've been making a payroll for 30
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  Speaker 1: plus years, 33 years. I know what it means. An
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  Speaker 1: entrepreneur works 18 hours a day to keep from getting
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  Speaker 1: a job. Okay. So what is an entrepreneur? I want
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  Speaker 1: you to not be mistaken. I want you to be educated.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I don't want you to be afraid of it, but
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  Speaker 1: I want you to know what you're getting into. A
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: friend of mine just this morning said he was going
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to become an entrepreneur. And I cautiously encouraged him, but
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  Speaker 1: wanted him to know what the real path looks like.
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  Speaker 1: And by the way, an entrepreneur is different than a
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  Speaker 1: business owner. I'm going to unpack that. I did another
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: podcast episode. You can go back where I talk about that. Specifically,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I'm going to rewind it and add it on this episode.
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  Speaker 1: So what is an entrepreneur? The truth about risk, ownership,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and building something from nothing. This should inspire everybody. Even
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: if you don't want to be an You better be
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  Speaker 1: entrepreneurial today if you want to survive, thrive, and win.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: You're running a household, you have to be entrepreneurial. You're
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: running a nonprofit organization, you have to be entrepreneurial, a
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: successful one. You're running an innovative small business and being
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: creative about it. You have to be entrepreneurial even though
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: you may not be an entrepreneur. And yes, again, there's
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a difference between a corporate leader, a business leader, a
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  Speaker 1: business owner, somebody with hustle, a side hustle, gig work.
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  Speaker 1: and an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur is the highest pecking order of
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  Speaker 1: risk taking in many ways. And I'll explain why. So
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: to get into this, I want you to listen to
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  Speaker 1: something I'm going to put on my social media. I'm
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: so impressed with what I read or heard today from
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Go Kart God. Go Kart God, G-O-K-A-R-T, G-O-D. Well, you'll
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: hear the story here. I'm going to literally let the,
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  Speaker 1: this entrepreneur does not know I'm featuring him, but I
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: want you to hear what it's like To be an
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  Speaker 1: entrepreneur who's on fire and excited about something in his
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: or her life, I want you to listen to the
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  Speaker 1: whole thing, and then I'm going to interact with my
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  Speaker 1: interpretation and go deeper into the explanation about entrepreneurship. I've
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: never done this on a podcast, but here you go.
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  Speaker 2: This week, we ship seven go-karts out the door, fully tested,
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  Speaker 2: fully tuned, in a crate, on their way to customers.
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  Speaker 2: If you would have told me even just two years
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  Speaker 2: ago that we would be selling $ 11, 000 go-karts and then
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  Speaker 2: producing almost 30 of them a month, I would say
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  Speaker 2: you're fucking insane. We used to try and strive to
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  Speaker 2: hit three to five go-karts in a month. You guys
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  Speaker 2: have to realize that that's crazy. This was an idea
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  Speaker 2: that I had last spring. We brought it to market
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  Speaker 2: very quickly. We were not really ready for production. We
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  Speaker 2: had four employees in April. And now we're creeping up
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  Speaker 2: just past 22 employees, probably getting up to about 30
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  Speaker 2: in the next month. We're going to have probably close
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  Speaker 2: to $ 60, 000 of payroll every month. I really do need
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  Speaker 2: to thank my team for helping me bring this to
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  Speaker 2: life because this is not a simple task. You guys
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  Speaker 2: are going to look at the outside in and you're
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  Speaker 2: not going to understand what it takes. It's literally 2 a.m.
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  Speaker 2: It's 2.18 a.m. I just sent out some invoices. I'm
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  Speaker 2: in the middle of a 3D print for a tool
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  Speaker 2: that's going to help bring efficiency to the shop. And
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  Speaker 2: I'm rendering images for a customer that's looking to buy
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  Speaker 2: four go-karts. I'm not gonna expect you guys to understand
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  Speaker 2: why I do this, but I do need you guys
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  Speaker 2: to respect the fact that this is like everything to me.
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  Speaker 2: I am going to give my whole life to this thing.
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  Speaker 1: And I love it.
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  Speaker 2: And I want to keep pushing for it because I
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  Speaker 2: know we're going to be the number one electric go-kart
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  Speaker 2: seller in the world.
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  Speaker 1: I can promise you that.
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  Speaker 2: Give me like two years. I'm not going to stop.
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  Speaker 2: I've already done 70 hours this week and I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to try and put in another 22 hours before Monday.
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  Speaker 2: This is exciting to me. This is so f * * *
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  Speaker 2: ing cool. Like we've done over a million dollars of revenue.
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  Speaker 2: 1.139 million dollars of revenue this year. I can't thank
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  Speaker 2: you guys enough for the support that you've given Go-Kart
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  Speaker 2: God and my team. You guys are the ones that
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  Speaker 2: are making this possible. You guys are the ones that
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  Speaker 2: are bringing these exciting products to market because I wouldn't
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  Speaker 2: be doing this without you.
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  Speaker 1: I wouldn't. So I.
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  Speaker 2: Just want to thank you guys. I appreciate it. None
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  Speaker 2: of this would have been possible without you.
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  Speaker 1: There you go. And I hope they get some orders,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: additional orders because of I'm featuring him on this podcast.
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  Speaker 1: I hope he gets some love. I hope you go
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  Speaker 1: and check out what he's doing. He's almost got a
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  Speaker 1: million followers on his page for the company. And he
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  Speaker 1: just started this last year. This is what happens when
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  Speaker 1: you not only have a good idea, because an idea
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  Speaker 1: alone is not enough, but you've got the hustle and
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the passion to see it through. There's so much that
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: this guy said about, and he is an entrepreneur. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: as he said, he's there at two in the morning.
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  Speaker 1: Business owners aren't typically at their office at two in
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  Speaker 1: the morning. I'm explaining the difference. He said, like, I'm
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  Speaker 1: born for this. Like, I will die for this. Like,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to give my whole life to this, he said.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, people maybe say raising children, they'll give their
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  Speaker 1: whole life to it or something, but people don't normally
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  Speaker 1: say that. And without knowing it, I said that. Without
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: knowing it, I said that. As an entrepreneur starting First
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Operation Hope, Well, my first ventures, neighborhood candy house, et cetera.
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  Speaker 1: And then, of course, Operation Hope and Brian Group Ventures.
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  Speaker 1: I said that same thing. I'm going to unpack that.
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  Speaker 1: But he said, I'll give my whole life to this.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to commit to this. Which means he's not
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  Speaker 1: seeing his family, not seeing his kids. He's there at
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  Speaker 1: 2 in the morning. He's doing a payroll. He's doing
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  Speaker 1: business plans. He's doing invoices. He's rendering something on a
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  Speaker 1: 3D machine behind him. He's walking the factory floor when
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  Speaker 1: everybody else is asleep. This is the world of an entrepreneur.
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  Speaker 1: Be careful what you ask for, people. when you dream
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  Speaker 1: about this, you just might get it. But if he hits,
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  Speaker 1: if he continues to kill the game like he is now,
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  Speaker 1: he'll create well-paid employees. He'll pay taxes. He'll help the
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  Speaker 1: city build infrastructure by paying his taxes. He'll help with
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the police support, school district support by paying his taxes.
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  Speaker 1: He'll help with sales tax. He'll help all the vendors
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  Speaker 1: who help with parts for his go-kart to be more successful.
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  Speaker 1: He's going to create middle-class workers in his or upper
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  Speaker 1: middle class workers and his employees. He'll create a few millionaires.
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  Speaker 1: As he becomes a multimillionaire, it is my hope in
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  Speaker 1: the next few years when his dream becomes real, he'll
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  Speaker 1: be able to have freedom. All money is his freedom.
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  Speaker 1: He'll create something great. He'll create a brand. He'll create
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  Speaker 1: something that gets replicated across the country and around the
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  Speaker 1: world because copying is the greatest form of flattery in
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  Speaker 1: many cases. Many people have tried to copy me. Very
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  Speaker 1: few have succeeded because they lack the passion. That's a
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  Speaker 1: whole other conversation for another day. And he will also,
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  Speaker 1: in what he's doing, he will help to reset from
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  Speaker 1: a mechanized world of messy and environmentally unfriendly mechanical go-karts.
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  Speaker 1: And I own one, full disclosure, at Atlanta Motorsports Park.
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  Speaker 1: But he'll move that to electric go-karts, which are environmentally sustainable.
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  Speaker 1: I may try to get one of his electric go-karts.
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  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about this now from my garage at the racetrack.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: where I have my cars and my carts. So a
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: lot to unpack there. But the core comment is everybody
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  Speaker 1: participates in capitalism. The question is, what position do you occupy?
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  Speaker 1: So you can sell your human capital to somebody and
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: receive a check. That's what having a job is. But
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  Speaker 1: you're using your human capital to to receive financial capital
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  Speaker 1: in a risk-adjusted, risk-managed preset environment. Neither is dishonorable. In
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  Speaker 1: other words, writing the check or cashing it, we need both.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, without that, you can't even become a socialist. Why?
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  Speaker 1: Because even if you want to distribute money like a socialist,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: you first have to collect it like a capitalist. The government,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: you can't even say, I'm going to work for the government.
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  Speaker 1: The government gets their money from tax receipts. Tax receipts
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: come from paychecks and payrolls and capital gains and other
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  Speaker 1: forms of taxes. That comes from those who write checks
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  Speaker 1: and those who cash checks. By the way, the lie
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  Speaker 1: that wealthy don't pay taxes, which is another podcast I did, 70%
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  Speaker 1: of all taxes in the biggest economy in the world, America,
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  Speaker 1: comes from people like me, people of means, comes from
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  Speaker 1: the wealthy. I know that's not very popular to say,
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  Speaker 1: but it is true. We don't pay, the wealthy don't
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: pay a lot of income tax, W-2 income, because wealthy
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  Speaker 1: people don't want W-2 income. They want capital gains income,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: if you want to call it that. I did 85
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: South interview and I covered all this in great detail.
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  Speaker 1: So go and watch the 85 South interview if you
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: want to talk about or hear me talk about and
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: go deep into taxes and why the wealthy supposedly don't
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: pay taxes when people say that they're talking about W-2 income,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: salaried income, or 1099 income. They're not talking about capital
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: gains tax, which is when you sell an asset, you
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: pay a 20% capital gains tax. So we need both
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  Speaker 1: in society. You need those who make the money, produce
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  Speaker 1: the product, create the risk, manage the risk environment, those
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: who work for those people to help to make that
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: dream possible. It's called a team. But these are fundamentally
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  Speaker 1: different economic positions. The entrepreneur accepts uncertainty today for the
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: possibility of disproportionate value tomorrow. Please tell me you're following me.
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  Speaker 1: And one important distinction, entrepreneurship is not synonymous with small
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  Speaker 1: business ownership. Yes, I said it. I want you to
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  Speaker 1: write it down. Entrepreneurship is not synonymous, not synonymous with
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: small business ownership. By the way, an entrepreneur created this
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: compressed carbon fiber and gold bracelet that I wear that's
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: in honor of Africa and the Caribbean, but a business
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: owner sold it. So see if you can figure that out.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: A small business owner can absolutely be an entrepreneur, but
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  Speaker 1: a small business can also essentially be a job that
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: you own. Entrepreneurship in its fullest form is about creating, organizing, scaling,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: and assuming risk around something that did not previously exist
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: in that form. A key comment I just made there.
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  Speaker 1: So What is, if you own a franchise at McDonald's,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I'm speaking for the McDonald's franchise owners here soon, in
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: a few weeks, are you an entrepreneur? You're a small
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: business owner. You own a Burger King franchise. You're a
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: small business owner. You own a corner store. You're a
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: small business owner. You own a restaurant, traditional restaurant. You're
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: a small business owner. You own a nail salon. Fantastic.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: You're a small business owner. You own a hair salon
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: or gas station. Fantastic. You're a small business owner. That's
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: not entrepreneurship. Great, but it's different. That's a traditional existing
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: business plan that you are executing on and you get
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: to go homes, hopefully at a decent hour, right? By
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the way, it's the middle of the night now when
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I'm recording this podcast. So, so much for a balanced life.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, a successful entrepreneur is balanced, in balance or
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: in imbalance, balanced person. You're going to be out of
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: balance somewhere because you've got to give so much of
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: this in order to take something that didn't exist and
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: bring it into reality. That's why you've seen me wear
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: shirts that sometimes say 365, 24 seven. It was offensive
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: to some of my employees. I'm not saying, well, I'm
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: not talking about you. I'm talking about me. But I
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: think I said, basically I said it was seven day
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: a week, 24 seven situation. And I wasn't talking about them.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I was talking about what it takes for me to
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: commit to what I'm doing and to make it be
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: successful at it. And by the way, it's not a
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: job for me. I enjoy it. It's not even work
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: for me. I just need to get some rest between
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: shifts because I really love what I do. It's not work.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I do it for free. So people don't, Know what
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I am, really. People ask me what I do. Am
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: I a businessman? Yes. Am I an author? Yes. Am
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I a nonprofit founder? Yes. Am I an investor? Yes.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: But none of these really explain what I am. Am
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I a capitalist? Yes. Am I a free enterprise guy? Yes.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Am I a private equity guy? Yes. Is my own
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: private equity invested in things that I tee up mostly
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: through my own brand and entrepreneurship? I'm in all those businesses.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: A few more, banking and a few other things. But
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: none of these really explain who I am. What I
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: am is an entrepreneur.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Hello.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: And I don't think most people actually understand what that
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: word means. Instagram has turned entrepreneurship into a lifestyle. Wrong.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: The car, the watch, the private plane, the nice house,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the announcement, the slick look, the shopping. That's not entrepreneurship
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: and that's not even success. Success is going from failure
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Entrepreneurship, an entrepreneur works
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: 18 hours a day to keep from getting a job.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Over and around it, through it, you're going to punch
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: through it. That's not what you're seeing on Instagram. An
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: entrepreneur is not shopping. Maybe they are occasionally, but they
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: might be producing what's in the shop. They may be
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: in their own shop, but a real entrepreneur is not
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: flossing and shopping. That's not at all what they're doing.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: That's not entrepreneurship. That's what somebody thinks entrepreneurship looks like
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: after it works. Drop the mic. Entrepreneurship is what happens
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: before anybody knows your name. Often before you even wake
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: up every day for your traditional life. They've been working
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: and they're sleeping for a few hours while you're commuting
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: to work. So let's talk about the years when nobody
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: believed your idea. I remember that. Nobody guarantees your salary.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, I definitely remember that. That was 90% of
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: my journey. In fact, I wrote checks to pay everybody
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: else's paycheck and didn't even think about, I didn't have
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: a paycheck. I didn't have a payroll back then. I'd
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: write a check to Rachel Doff, my chief of staff,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: on a Friday because enough checks didn't come into the organization.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: And I'd write the check for my personal account. Back
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: then we had CDs, certificates of deposits from the banks.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And I'd break a CD, 25,000 at a time. And
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I'd give Rachel a check for $ 25, 000, $ 50, 000, $ 100, 000 out
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: of my personal account and say if the incoming checks
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: for the company or the organization don't come in by
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Monday morning, deposit my check to cover payroll. And that
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: did not include payroll for me. In fact, I really
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: just had a modest rent and a car note. And
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: it was a used car. And I believe I was
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: staying in somebody's like a cottage or extra apartment or something.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: It definitely didn't have a house or nothing fancy when
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I was coming up. So nobody tells you what to
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: do tomorrow morning. You got to figure that out for yourself.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: The bank may say, no, I need to cover the check. Nope.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: I need a loan. Nope. I need a line of credit. Nope.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: By the way, I never got a big loan coming
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: up as an entrepreneur, just so you know that. In fact,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I never got a traditional loan until I was uber successful.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I just reinvented, reinvested my so-called profits, my cash flow,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and just kept grinding. So customers may say no. I
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: take no for vitamins, by the way. Investors may say no.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: That definitely happened. Employees still expect to get paid. Hello?
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: They want a risk-managed environment. Your family still expects you
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: to come home. That's why a lot of entrepreneurs and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: relationships don't mix very well. because it's out of balance.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Your family still expects you to come home and they
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: want you to be normal. They want you to have
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: a conversation about normal things. They want to go to
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: dinner with you. They want to, you know, whatever. They
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: want you to, you know, fund their lifestyle, whatever the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: thing is. And that just may not be possible when
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: you're out there hustling. And so it creates, you know,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: it creates a fair share of drama and people who
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: are entrepreneurs are often lone wolves. And you got to
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: be cool with that. And somehow you have to make
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the math at the office work. An employee gets paid
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: for showing up. An entrepreneur gets paid when the ideas work.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Employees are also paid for skill, judgment, and results. But
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: their compensation is contractually much less exposed to enterprise-level downside. Translation.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Whether the entrepreneur's crazy idea works or not, employees still
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: get their check. They don't have to worry about it
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: unless the place goes bust. So, today, I want to
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: tell you what entrepreneurship actually is. And I'm going to
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: tell you through the same lens that I lived my
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: life and built what I did from nothing. Let's start
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: with where entrepreneur came from. The English word comes from
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the French word, reneur. So again, the English word comes
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: from the French word entrepreneur, built around entrepre, E-N-T-R-E-P-R-E-N-D-R-E, to undertake.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: That's what that means. Entreprende. I'm sure my French friends
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: will correct me, so don't be laughing at me. An
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: entrepreneur is an undertaker, not a funeral undertaker, okay? An
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: undertaker in the original sense, somebody who undertakes something. French-Irish
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: economist Richard Catillon helped give the entrepreneur an economic meaning
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: in the 18th century, someone operating under uncertainty. buying at
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: certain prices and selling into an uncertain future. Buying parts
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: of a thing, creating a thing, and then selling the
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: thing and hoping for the thing. An entrepreneur jumps out
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: of the plane and manufactures the parachute on the way down. Later,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Jean-Baptiste emphasized the entrepreneur's role in coordinating resources and moving
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: them toward more productive uses. By the way, The words
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I've used, the names I've mentioned to you so far,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: other than the English reference, is French. So entrepreneur came
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: from France. How did France become so successful? Entrepreneurship and
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: free enterprise and people who are risk-takers. Some good capitalists,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: some not good capitalists. That's a whole other story. Some moral,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: some ethical, some not, but that's life. But that's where, okay,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: but it came from risk-taking. Today, the worst place probably
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: to be, with all due respect, is an entrepreneur based
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: on government structure, and all that stuff, it's probably France.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: And that's, I believe, why France has pulled back in
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the world economy in the list of top economies. It's
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: still a beautiful place. I go there to visit, to
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: look at the museums. It has to be careful not
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: to become a museum to the past versus a target
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: point for the future. But you can't fire employees easily
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: in France. You cannot be entrepreneurial easily in France. It's
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: a very restrictive place. But that's where the word came from.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: So if you go far enough in the North Pole,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: You end up south. Then you had Joseph Schumpeter, Schumpeter,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: who gave us another powerful conception. The entrepreneur as the
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: agent of innovation and listen now, creative destruction. Remember where
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: there used to be, for those older listening to this,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: a Kmart booths, film development booths for Kmart on every
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: open air retail shopping center on a corner in America.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Start nodding your head, 50-year-olds and 60-year-olds and 70-year-olds, right? Well,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: that went away. It's destructive and constructive capitalism. Replaced it
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: was the thing you're looking at right now. Well, it
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: became a digital phone, which didn't require film processing. And
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: then you used to drop off your film at this corner,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: this little booth, and then come back in a week,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: or they'd mail it to you, but you'd come back
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: in a week and pick it up. And then digital
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: phones came. And now, of course, so digital cameras came.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And now you have a digital phone that takes pictures.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: But that's because you had Sears. Well, Sears had the
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: original catalogs. I mean, they had everybody's name, rank, and
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: serial number. They should have been alive forever. But they
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: stopped being innovative. They stopped hustling. They stopped thinking. They
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: got comfortable. And Sears got their head handed to them
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: by Walmart and Amazon. Think about this. Don't trust me.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Blockbuster owned the home entertainment game, owned it, right? Blockbuster
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: date was everybody's date. Can I get an amen? Now
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: there's one Blockbuster and it's located in Alaska and it's
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: symbolic only. They basically got out of business and now
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: you have Netflix. And if Netflix is not careful, they'll
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: be taken out by somebody. That's why the smart people
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: at Netflix are constantly re-imagining their own business plan and game.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I think they're doing a really good job of it.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: But by the way, there was a time that Blockbuster
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: could have bought Netflix for $ 50 million. They turned their
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: nose up and turned away and said, we're blockbuster. Well,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: they're out of breath. They're out of business now. And
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: there's Circuit City and could, you know, but now you
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: have Best Buy. You have, think about all this constructive
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and destructive, constructive enterprise creation. Things come and things go.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: That's just the way it TI is. Let's connect all
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: three now. So Cantillon, he focused on risk and uncertainty. Say,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: focused on organization. Shumbita, focused on innovation. Put those together,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: and you've got a pretty good description of my life.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: And every organization needs to have a hunter, a skinner,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and a cook. Initially, as an entrepreneur, and you listen
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: to that audio that I share with you, that young man,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: he was a hunter, the skinner, and the cook. And
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: as you get bigger and more sophisticated, you pass on
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: parts of that that you don't do well to somebody else.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Of course, I'm a hunter. That's what I do. And
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I was the skinner and the cook when I needed
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: to be. But now I've got a lot of folks
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: who are skinners and cooks. I'm focusing on hunting. And
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: most people don't like selling. They don't like closing deals.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: They don't like putting themselves at risk. So they should
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: not be an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur sees something that doesn't
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: exist and decides that it should. Drop the mic again.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Entrepreneur and small business owner. Let me say clearly that
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: small business owners are essential to capitalism. to community, to society,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: to culture. Essential. Entrepreneurship isn't better. It's a different orientation.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Employee sells human capital for wages, benefits, and relative predictability.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Let's just say it, a safe income. A lot of
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: people are on social media here today are, I'm leaving
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: this entrepreneurship thing. I'm going back and get a job.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: There you go. And I think kudos. You need more
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: employees than you need employers. You need more employers than
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: you need crazy entrepreneurs. But you need entrepreneurs. You need
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: business owners. You need employers. You need employees. All this
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: is part of an ecosystem. And when you get it right,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: you have stakeholder capitalism, which I talk about in my book,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Capitalism for All, which you should get, by the way.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: It's a national bestseller, so thank you for that. And
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: this is the book, Capitalism for All, national bestseller, last
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: six months. number one in three categories on Amazon, by
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the way. And so you need all these things for
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: an economy and a culture and a community to thrive.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: You never had a world leader that wasn't the economic
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: leader at the same time. So don't hate on capitalists
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: and capitalism. Even if you want to distribute money like
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: a socialist, you first have to collect it like a
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: capitalist because it's all connected. So an employee sells human
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: capital for wages, benefits, and relative predictability. Self-employed professional owns
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the job. If they stop working, much of the income
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: stops too. Small business owner owns an operating enterprise that
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: may provide a durable livelihood, employ others, and build substantial wealth.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Most millionaires are the millionaire next door. They become millionaires
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: in their 50s, the late 50s, and they're small business owners.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: The doctor is a small business owner. The attorney is
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: a small business owner. The architect is a small business owner. Yeah,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: they provide an essential service and maybe even a public
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: service or a health service or a lifeline service, but
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: they're also, you're paying them. Hello, you're not doing it
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: for free. They're small business owners. Can I get an amen,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: by the way? Somebody give me some church up in here.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: An entrepreneur, this is the crazy person I am, attempts
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: to create an organization, product, market, platform, or system whose
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: value can ultimately become larger than the founder's individual labor.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: Voila.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: I told you you'd make money during the day. It's
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: my brother, Tony Ressler, quote. He'll be coming on the
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: podcast soon. I talk about him a lot. He's finally
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: coming on the podcast. One of the wealthiest men in
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the world, up from nothing, and a brilliant guy. And
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: I'm honored to be working with him on a range
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: of things now, including Centennial Yards here in Atlanta. This
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: could be another project that came out of the ground
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: out of an idea in something called the Gulch. It
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: was a hole in the ground. And now it's a
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: $ 6 billion development for which I'm honored to be a
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: partner and investor and part owner in. We have hotels
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: and all kinds of things are popping up there, Live
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Nation and Phoenix Hotel and all this great stuff that's
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: there already and more stuff coming. Right across from Mercedes-Benz
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Stadium and State Farm Arena, where Tony also owns the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Atlanta Hawks. But none of that existed until it did,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: until somebody took an entrepreneurial risk. and the city and
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the county decided, yeah, this is a risk we're taking
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and we benefit too. And so all boats rise. Now
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: you're creating employees that didn't exist, contracts that didn't exist,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: wealth that didn't exist, opportunities that didn't exist, entertainment and
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: housing didn't exist, hotel room stays that didn't exist, joy
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: through concerts that didn't exist. See what I'm saying? Hello.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: And then you have other entrepreneurs who sit on our
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: platform who open their restaurants and they're dreaming on the
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: platform we created. Okay, I'm getting off on a side note,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: but my point is that All these pieces are essential
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to the ecosystem that we all live in and we
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be hating on one. We should just try to,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, a saint is a sinner that got up.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: There's no perfect. We should be trying to make good better,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: not destroy good because it's not perfect. Don't let the
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: perfect become the death of the good. So if you
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: disappear for six months with with the business continue creating value,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: these are questions for somebody who calls himself an entrepreneur.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: If the answer is no, you may own a very
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: good job, a self-employment project. If the answer increasingly becomes yes,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: You're building an enterprise, and you may be a successful entrepreneur.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: See what I'm saying? If you are just doing a
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: side hustle or your own hustle, it may be entrepreneurial.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: It might be creative, but that doesn't make you an entrepreneur.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: So let me distinguish income from equity. Again, my brother
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Tony Ressler said, you make money during the day, you
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: build wealth in your sleep. Employees primarily build income. Entrepreneurs
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: try to build enterprise value. I'm actually... growing my net
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: worth while I'm sitting here talking to you on this podcast,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: and it has nothing to do with what I'm talking about,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: the words I'm using on the podcast. Income pays your bills.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Equity frees your life. Let me tell you very quickly
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: this story of me, for those who don't know. I'm
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: going to do this quick because many of you know
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: my story, but my mother, Juanita Smith, And my father,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Johnny Smith, and by the way, Operation Hope now has
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the first ever AI agent called Juanita AI, named after
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: my mother. Thank you, my team, for doing that. Rachel Doff, Jennifer,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and all the team who put this together, Kevin Boucher,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: et cetera, named this for my mother. But Juanita AI
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: is the first AI agent that is modeled after a
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: working class, hourly income black woman with three children. in
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: a single parent household, running a single parent household, first
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: AI agent in history. And now you can talk to
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: my mother. This is all entrepreneurial, by the way, we
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: created it. And no, we're not trying to get paid
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: for it. No, I'm not making any money on it.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: And the intellectual property right, I'm releasing to the world
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: because anybody can now go and type in one of
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the AI. I encourage you to do that now. Go
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: to my website at Operation Hope, my website at Brian
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Group Ventures, type in, go to the Hope and Hand
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: app or type in one of the AI on your
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: search device. And then a couple clicks in, you'll see
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: a picture of my mother, and you can ask her
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: about me. Ask her about growing up. Ask her about
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: how she built wealth. Ask her about her challenges. Ask
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: her how she became a millionaire with a $ 15 to
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: $ 18 an hour job for 30 years. That's innovation, and
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: that's entrepreneurship. And this is social entrepreneurship, meaning I'm not
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: earning any money from this, but it is solving a
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: problem that is a new problem with a new solution,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: and I created it from scratch. You're starting to get it? Anyway,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: my mother, Juanita Smith, and my dad, Johnny Smith. My
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: dad was a business owner, not an entrepreneur. My mother
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: was an employee. She worked an hourly job. See there?
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: But through their strength of determination, me and my brother, Donnie,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: and my sister, Monty, were able to grow up in
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: a stable household. And so now I've seen two murders before.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: I saw one murder of a guy who saved my life.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: It's in my book. And then my best friend was murdered.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I didn't see that, but it happened down the street, George,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: when I was nine. And my mom and dad divorced
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: when I was four or five, something like that. My
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: sister knows the exact timing. And so my mother goes
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and buys a house in Compton, 15502 South Fraley Avenue, Compton, California.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: When you own something, when you own a house, you
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: remember the address. I'm doing a whole podcast on renting
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: your life, so wait for that one. And I wanted
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: to get out of the hood. I wanted to escape prison, probation, parole,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: and death. So I went to school with this history
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: of looking around me and seeing all these brilliant people
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: around me who were not being valued by the free
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: enterprise system, did not understand capitalism, did not understand financial literacy,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and were getting punked and pimped and taken advantage of
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: by the system, the environment. And I lived in a
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: 500-credit score neighborhood, so there was a check casher. payday
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: loan lender, rental home store, title lender, liquor store, pawn shop.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Started to get it. And I saw nobody getting out.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: And what I saw on TV, I saw nobody related
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: to that. So I go to school and I'm nosy.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: A guy gives you two ears and one mouth so
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: you listen twice as much as you talk. And I
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: go to school and this banker comes in my classroom.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I may have to do part one and part two
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: of this podcast as I'm thinking about this. Let's see
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: how far I get on this entrepreneurship thing. May have
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: to do a series. And he comes in my classroom,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: and he had to come there because the law, the
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Community Reinvestment Act law, forced him to come and teach
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: financial literacy. But I'm so glad it did. And he
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: didn't want to be there, and we didn't want him there.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: And he came once a week for six weeks for
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: an hour. And the first week, we threw paper planes
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: at him, and he ignored us. Second week, he came in,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: and we paid somewhat attention. And he said, you know,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: you kids are not so bad. You sort of remind
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: me of my own little kids in a way. And
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: we said, you're not so bad for a white dude.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: And even though it sounded a little like a diss,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: we were actually giving him a compliment. We're saying, look,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: we're comfortable with you. We're glad you're here. And the
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: third week, everybody else was paying somewhat attention. I was
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: obsessively paying attention. I just kept raising my hand, raising
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: my hand. By the third or the fourth week, I'm like, man,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: what do you do for a living? And how'd you
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: get rich legally? He said, I'm a banker and I
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: finance entrepreneurs. I said, I don't know what an entrepreneur is,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: but if it's legal and you're financing it, I'm going
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: to be one. So I cracked open the dictionary back then.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: You call it a Google search today or artificial intelligence search.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: And I cracked open the dictionary under the word entrepreneur,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: French words. I already told you build something, create something
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: out of nothing. And I was like, that's what I'm
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: going to do. And so the, I went back again
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the next week, I think, and I had to wear
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: it by this point of wearing a suit, modeling the
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: banker in the classroom. Again, you can go in my book,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: capitalism for all of financial literacy for all, or one
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: of my seven books up from nothing and get the
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: whole backstory or ask my mother and one of the AI,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the backstory of the details of this whole thing. So
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: we don't waste time on the podcast, but I was
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: wearing a suit and I had a briefcase and the
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: whole thing, my dreams were nothing. This is the briefcase
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: of my dreams. And, uh, I said, uh, so let
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: me make sure I understand this properly. Your job is
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: to lend poor people money. Yep. And all I have
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: to do is I can afford to pay it back. Yep. Okay.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: You got this thing that's called a credit, whatever. Yep, credit.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: It comes from the Latin root word credito, which means credibility,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: by the way. And capitalism comes from the Latin root
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: word capitas, which means loosely defined knowledge in the head about,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: in this case, the capital markets, money, business, free enterprise.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: And so I'm like, and if I don't pay you back,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I won't get dead. And he laughed, right? And I'm like,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: he's like, well, why would I kill you? I'm like,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: because that's what happens in my neighborhood. You don't pay
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Pookie and them back. You end up disappearing. They want
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: their money back. It's not a bank you're going to.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: It's going, you know, it's a game that lends money.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: And he said, no, I'm not going to kill you.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I'd give you a notice of default. I said, wait
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: a minute. You're giving me a piece of paper? Sign
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: me up. And that's how I started my path toward entrepreneurship.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: And later on, I realized and I said, so, you know,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: how many bankers are there? At that point, it was
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: literally millions of bankers. Today, still millions of bankers. There's
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: 10,000 banks back then. There's 4,500 banks now. But Bank
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: of America alone has 250,000. Bank of America and Wells
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Fargo individually have a quarter million employees or more than
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: this banker, by the way, is from Bank of America.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: So thank you, Bank of America, for sending them there.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: And I said, their job, basically, is to lend. Everybody's
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: job is to try to find people like me and
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: lend money to them on a risk-adjusted basis. Yep. So
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: if you think about what I'm doing later on in
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: my life, fast forward almost two decades, founding Operation Hope,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: it's really teaching everybody in mass, every class at every stage,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: to go from the masses to the classes by teaching
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: financial literacy, capitalism, how the system works, rebuilding the ladder. Again,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: my book, Capitalism for All, so that people can climb
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: up and escape poverty or frustration or depression or the
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: trap that they think that they're in and to become free.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: in a free enterprise economy. And America is a capitalist democracy,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: big C, little d. Am I giving you too much
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: at one time, people? Let me know on the comments.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: So make a long story short, got inspired by him,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: go home. I'm seeing now that muffler shops is a
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: business and nail salon is a business. And I'm seeing
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: the person inside is now not a nail tech, but
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: a business owner and all this stuff. And the person
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: who took care of us when mom was at work,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: ran a little nursery business out of their house. That
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: was a business owner. They weren't doing it for free.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: They're being paid by my mother. You see what I'm saying?
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: All this stuff connects. And I went and saw this
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: liquor store on the corner, Mac's Liquor Store. Mr. Mac,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: this would definitely have to be a multi-series on entrepreneurship.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: I apologize in advance, but we'll just call this phase one.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Let me know if you're enjoying this before I do
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: phase two. I'll probably do this in three or four parts.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: And I go in to the brother, a black man,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: who ran Mac's Liquor Store, Mr. Mac, 6'2, or taller,
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: maybe 6'4. And I went in and I said, sir,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: you're selling the wrong kind of candy. It was Mac's
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Liquor Store on the corner going to my house, but
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: it was not on the way to school, not a
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: good location for school. We had a little glass counter
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: that sold candy. And because there was no competition that
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: there were no other places that sold candy in that neighborhood,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: the best place you can get, the only other place
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: you can get candy was what was called Thrifty's Drugstore.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Now you call it CVS or something. But Thrifty's Drugstore
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: was way down the street, also not on the way
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: to school. But my house was literally on the way
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: to school. You'd drive down or walk down that street
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: and you end up at Whaley Junior High School. I
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: was 10 years old, so I might have still been
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: at Osagando Elementary School, but my house was on the
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: way to Whaley Junior High School, where I ultimately went.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: That's where the people could afford to buy my stuff
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: for real, where we're going to school. So he was
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: on the way to school, and this banker taught me
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: about location, location, location. It's part of entrepreneurship and business ownership.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: You're selling a long kind of candy. go away, little boy,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I've got a college degree, he said. I said, well,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: I've got cavities. I'm telling you, you're selling the wrong
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: kind of candy, right? And so he's like, well, what
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: do you want? Well, I want to help you. I
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: didn't realize the word I needed back then was partnership.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I wanted to be your joint venture partner in this business.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't have that language back then. But as I
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: look at what I do now, I was doing it
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: my whole life. I was doing it when I was nine,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: 10 years old. So I want to help you with this.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I want to, you know, And he interpreted that as
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I wanted a job because nobody in my neighborhood asked
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: to be for equity. They only asked for a paycheck.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: They wanted a cash check, not writing. It's too much risk.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: They didn't even dream that big. So he said, look,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I'll give you a job. You've got a good gift
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: for Gab. When you come home from school, I'm going
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: to let you be at the candy counter, this glass
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: candy counter, and I want you to sell the candy.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no. Huh? Didn't you just ask me to
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: work with me? No, I don't want to work for you.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: I want to work with you. I want to help
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: you sell the right kind of candy. You also need
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: to get rid of this stuff. It's the wrong kind
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: of candy in the wrong location. It's coming to you
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: because you've got no other choice. He said, look, kid,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: I'm going to pay you the highest hourly rate in
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the city, in this area. I'm giving you a really
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: good job after hours, after school. I don't want it. Well,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: what do you want? I want to be a box boy.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: That's the worst job I got. Why would you want
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to be a box boy? And you're going to work
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: in the cold box back there? Boy, you're pushing inventory up? Yep.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: That's where I want. He said, kid, I'm not sure
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: the school is doing you much of a favor. But sure,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: that's what you want. So I got the job. And
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: after school, I'd show up for work. And I worked
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: there for a few weeks. And I learned, I was
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: watching through the cold boxes. I'm pushing, you know, the
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: guy pushing liquor bottles and water bottles from the back
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: to the front so you can pull it out the
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: front of the glass door. That's me. That was me.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: And I'm looking across the way at the glass counter
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: of the candy shop to see who's coming and buying candy,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: what they're buying, how many customers he had. And he
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: really didn't have a lot of customers. Most of his
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: customers were for liquor. It was a liquor store. But
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: he had enough that I was impressed that people, and
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: I recognized these people from the neighborhood. They were walking
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: way out of their way to buy this candy. Like, hmm,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I could steal those customers. I could entice them, shall
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: I say, with a better product designed in a new way.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: So I would then open up the boxes that came
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: in from inventories from Smart and Final and Iris Food Store.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: So Smart and Final was the, I think the wholesale
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: part of Iris Food Store and Iris Food Store was
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: where he wholesale purchased his inventory, all his inventory, by
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: the way, for this liquor store. And that's another business
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: that people should think about going into, wholesaling to retailers
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: in communities. And so I wrote down the name of the, company,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: by the way, a Jewish couple who I ultimately met
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: and I'm thankful to this day, own the store. They
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: were very helpful to me. I'll get back to, I'll
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: come to that in a minute. And I wrote down
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the name of the store, Iris Food Store and Smart
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: and Final, little bit of factoid because Pastor Young would
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: say coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. A little
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: bit of a factoid. Aries Management that I served on
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: the board of for, I served on the board of
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: one of their subsidiaries with Tony Ressler and Michael Arrighetti
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: about a decade and a half ago. one of the
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: board reports came through and I noticed one of the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: companies that was just purchased was Smart and Final, an
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Irish food store. Can't make this up. The company that
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: gave me a break built that business so large across
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: the country that they were bought by Wall Street. And
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: they were to take that liquidity event, that's what it's called,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: a liquidity event when you sell a business, and endow
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: their whole family with generational wealth. And it started in
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: a neighborhood where I Went to them with a dream.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: So I go to open up the box and there's
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: an inventory list, which I realized was a wholesale rate
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: of what they cost, what all the inventory I was
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: looking at in this particular box had candy in it,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: what the wholesale rate was for the candy, then what
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: the recommended retail rate was. You could sell it for
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: more if you wanted to, but they'd already scientifically evaluated
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: how much it would sell for to the average kid
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: buying candy. And so that's why it's a traditional business,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: by the way, because the work's already done. That's again,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: going back to that business versus entrepreneurship thing. So I
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: pull out the inventory list. There were no copy or
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: machines back then. There were nothing that you take a
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: picture of. I pull out the inventory list and I
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: memorize it and I see the wholesale rate, the retail rate,
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: and I see the difference is profit. And I remember
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: that's what the banker told me about in the classroom. Ah,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: that's how you get rich, right? That's it. I want that.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: So I quit. Quit the job a few weeks in.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Owner thought I was crazy. I go home, tell my
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: mother this fanciful story. I want you to back me
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: in a business. I want to open it in our den.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: I want to call the neighborhood candy house, and I
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: need 40 bucks from you. That's the budget I did
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: based on what the banker taught me in financial literacy
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: course in the classroom. She said, well, it sounds very interesting,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: and I'm very impressed with this, but I'm not giving
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: you anything. No one gives anybody anything. You got to
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: work for it. You got to pay it back also,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: so I'll loan you $ 40 under terms. Okay. And where
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: is this place you need to get the inventory from?
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: She wouldn't let me go by myself. My mother was gangster.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Juanita Smith, gangster. When she got laid off at McDonald's aircraft,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: because they were in between contracts, they were airplane manufacturers.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: And she manufactured, fabricated the seats in the airplane. So
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: with all the flying I do now, I recall often
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: these might be seats, some of the older planes that
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: she actually made. And when she was laid off between contracts,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: when there were no contracts, the mill built planes. She
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: didn't go on welfare. I'll repeat, she did not go
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: on welfare. She came to my school, and that one
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: is my elementary school, and said, what jobs do you
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: have available? She wanted to be around her child. She
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: wanted to observe me, which was irritating. But this is
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: what parents, good parents do. Love is work. Non-love is laziness.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Anti-love is evil. Evil exists, but it's very rare. Most
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: people are just lazy, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally lazy. They don't
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: want to do the work. They want somebody to do
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: it for them. My mother showed up and showed out.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: She said, what jobs are available? We have a janitor's
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: job available. I'll take it. So I'm walking through the halls.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Here's my mother, the janitor. Dang. Right? And as now
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: I recall, it was elementary school because I wore that
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: suit to elementary school and got beat up. I also
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: wore it to junior high. It's a whole other thing.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: Because I got jacked at junior high school because they
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: thought I had some money. But who else would wear
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: these stupid suits like this? And yes, you had some money.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: But in elementary school, I wore this purple crushed velvet
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: three-piece suit with a ruffle shirt and a big bow tie.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: There's a reproduction of it in my office, by the way,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: because that was a suit my mother made for me
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: for church. She's like, I'm not buying you a suit.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: I wanted to wear a suit to school to model
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: what the banker looked like. You can wear your Sunday suit.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I got beat up every day. That's why I believe
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: that eagles don't fly in packs. You've never seen a
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: flock of eagles, right? Because I was forced to be
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: an eagle, to be an individual because I had no friends.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: I was not cool. And I got to wear a
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: stupid suit And a briefcase with my dreams in it
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: where I saw mail order shoes for Stacey Adams and
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: all kinds of things in my briefcase. This was before
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood candy house thing. So I was always enterprising.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: So anyway, my mother's a janitor. I'd see her go
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: into class. Embarrassing. Hey, there's my mom and a janitor. Right?
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: And then she'd go back to work at McDonald's. She'd
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: get laid off again. She comes back. What job do
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: you have available? Wait, oh, we have a security guard.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: So there's mom's security guard. Oh, dang. But mom raised
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: us well. So thank you, mom. So I go to
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: Iris Food Store in Smart and Final with my mother.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: And we meet the owners. And I'm going to try
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: to see if these owners are still around, their family.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: I'm going to track them down so I can say
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: thank you. And they agreed to sell me candy at
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: wholesale rates. They shouldn't have done this. I didn't have
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: a business permit. They didn't ask me. They just assumed
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: it was a school project. Thank you very much. And
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: they gave me some racks for free to put the
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: candy on. So I go back to my house, 1502
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: South Fraley, Compton, California. And it was on the way
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: to school. And you can Google search the location today.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Modest house. And in the den, it looks basically the same.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: It just looks smaller. It's interesting when you grow up
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: in a house. It's huge. But you go back to
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: that house as an adult, you go, my God, it's
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: just minuscule. So in the den, I set up my
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: candy racks and I advertised to my friends. I ate
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: through half the inventory. I don't really like candy like
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: that to this day. I'll eat it every now and then,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: but I don't have bad teeth because I didn't eat
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: bad candy beyond that first time. And then I sold
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: the other half of the candy and still made a profit.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. I
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: ate through half the inventory and I'm still doing well.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: What would happen if I was disciplined, right? So I
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: went back, got another set of inventory, did not eat
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: my own product. this time, and made $ 300 a week
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: on a $ 40 investment and put the liquor store out
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: of the candy business in a matter of weeks. Boom.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Imagine what happened to my self-esteem. Imagine what happened to
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: my confidence. Imagine what happened to my belief in myself.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Imagine what happened to my belief in markets. Imagine what
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: happened to my understanding of financial literacy, which became operational
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: in this. Imagine what happened to my sense of dreaming.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Imagine what happened to my nature, my character, my confidence
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: rooted in something that was real. You couldn't stop me.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: I was unstoppable from that moment forward. Reminds me of
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: a quick story. My friend Mike Maples Jr. is a
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: venture capitalist in Silicon Valley. And his father worked for Microsoft,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: was president of a division under Bill Gates at Microsoft.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: So I'm talking to Mike Maples one day. I said, Mike,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: tell me your backstory, man. Nobody just ends up here
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: where you are. And he said, oh, my dad worked
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: for Microsoft. And I had a little, you know, you
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: tell me, I remember your business, John. I had a
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: little business when I was 12 years old. And I
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: think he said he was It had something to do with,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: you know, paper route or something. I forget what the
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: business was, but let's just say it was some kind
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: of a paper route business. And he said his dad was,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: you know, he worked for Microsoft. And I said, he
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: worked for Bill Gates. That's the way everybody works for
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Bill Gates. What does he do? Finally, he said he's
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: president of a division, of the product services division at Microsoft.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: So like he really did work for Bill Gates. So
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: there was a certain kind of character of a guy. Okay,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: hold that. for a moment. He built wealth and the
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: whole thing. So Mike Maples Jr. starts his business, and
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: he comes, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, I'm so excited. I built
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: this business, and I'm going to sell it to Disney. Now,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: why would Disney buy a paper route? Who knows? But anyway,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Dad says, I'm ashamed of you. Huh? Now, I think
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: about any kid that we've got in our neighborhoods, these
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: underserved neighborhoods, if a kid walks up to us and
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: says they're going to start a business, we'd be excited,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: let alone going to sell the business. We'd be thrilled
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: if they were able to do it. This father was
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: the opposite. He said, I'm ashamed of you. That's right.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: We don't raise children like this in our household. In
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: this household, we don't raise you to build a business
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: and sell that business to Disney. We raise you to
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: build a business and to use that business to buy Disney. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Blew my brain. My God, this guy, talking about thinking big.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: So what does Mike Maples do? Expands his territory, his
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: sense of dreaming. What is Mike Maples today? One of
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: the top 10 venture capitalists in Silicon Valley investing in
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: big businesses, buying them. We model what we see. So
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: here's what I normally discovered as a young entrepreneur in
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: this part one of Entrepreneurship Podcast. I uncovered demand, inventory, pricing,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: profit margins, customer service, management, cashflow, reinvestment. Nobody called it capitalism.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: Nobody called it entrepreneurship. I was just trying to figure
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: something out. So this is my first major lesson. Entrepreneurship
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: starts with observation. The entrepreneur sees a problem in efficiency,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: like that Max liquor store, a desire or opportunity that
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: everyone else walks past, they miss. But an entrepreneur works
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: 18 hours a day to keep from getting a job.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: An entrepreneur understands that God gave you two ears and
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: one mouth. You listen twice as much as you talk.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: And to quote my dearly departed friend and mentor and brother,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Quincy Jones, Quincy, how'd you get so smart? Answer, I'm
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: just nosy as hell. I want to know everything about everything.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: And Quincy Jones was not just a music promoter, music producer,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: music writer, because Quincy Jones told me, if you think
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: you're in the music business, And you don't want music rights,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: licensing rights, or some kind of intellectual property rights. You're
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: not in the music business. You're just a temporary performer.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: So Quincy Jones, amongst everything else, was an impresario, and
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: he was an entrepreneur. He created something from nothing, a
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: man of many titles and jobs. I am honored to
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: say I knew this man. And hopefully his life inspires you,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: and hopefully this story has inspired you and we're at
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: about the hour mark. So I'm going to stop here,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: but give me some notes on social media, wherever you
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: see clip out to this, that you want to see
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: part two and part three. I certainly can break this
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: down for you and do that, but I only want
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: to give you what benefits you. So in the midst
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: of me having guests coming through, whatever, let me, you
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: want me to just be a multi-part series. I will
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: break this out and promise you to give you all
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: four series are all multi, probably four parts of this,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: this year in coming weeks. This is John O'Brien on entrepreneurship,
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: what it is, what it isn't, and why it's magical
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: and how it's changed my life and how it can
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: change yours, whether you are one or you work for
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: one or you encourage one or you root for one
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: or you want to inspire one by giving birth to one,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: as my mother and father did for me. I hope
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: this does something for you. I hope it advances you.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: I hope it inspires you to understand that you have
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: a place in this world, you have agency, and you
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: can become anything you want to be because I did
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: it from scratch. This is John O'Brien. By the way,
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: this podcast is another creation that didn't exist, but this
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: was created actually by my brother and friend, Charlemagne Nygaard,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: who is known to be a personality on radio. He
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: really is a businessman and in many ways an entrepreneur
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: because he creates things from scratch, including this podcast network,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: Black Effect Network, which is one of the most powerful
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: in the world. He also has an imprint for books,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to bring him on the podcast at
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: some point. And I'm honored to not only have a
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: podcast on his platform, I serve on his board of
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: directors at Black Effect Network, and I'm a modest owner
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: in what he's done. But this is all his. He
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: owns the whole thing, this little tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: But that's because I wanted a piece of his dream,
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: because I knew he'd go and change the whole game,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: which he has and continues to do. John O'Brient, Money
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: and Wealth podcast, a new episode on entrepreneurship on iHeartRadio.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Let's go be the change we want to see in
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: the world. I'll see you in the next episode. Let
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: me know what you think. Money and Wealth with John
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: O'Brien is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows.