Latest / The Table with Anthony ONeal / From Living in Her Car to Raising Millions: Arian Simone on Debt, Wealth & Fearless Freedom

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From Living in Her Car to Raising Millions: Arian Simone on Debt, Wealth & Fearless Freedom · The Table with Anthony ONeal

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Aaron, welcome to the show.
0:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
0:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me, but Anthony.
0:05
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
0:06
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not my first time on your show.
0:09
[SPEAKER_01]: This is horrible.
0:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, you had a group of us.
0:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
0:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Like his, like here's my first time.
0:16
[SPEAKER_01]: What a wonderful show.
0:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
0:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
0:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like,
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're right, you did, you did the panel, yes, remember that now.
0:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember that.
0:27
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the panel too.
0:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, my first him is a guest on the show, which is just, so thank you for having me.
0:35
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband has done the show.
0:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And he wrote and people love it.
0:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, he's amazing.
0:40
[SPEAKER_01]: He has a brilliant mind.
0:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Your husband has become a dear friend.
0:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I love friends who can love you, who can cheer for you.
0:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also
0:50
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, and still love you.
0:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I am sharpens iron.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a fact.
0:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I am sharpens iron.
0:55
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that's good.
0:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, listen, go out.
0:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Aaron is the true.
0:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Her wedding was amazing.
1:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
1:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I told my son, I said, if I get married, I hope I can get married in Ghana.
1:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if we don't get married in Ghana.
1:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we go.
1:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's you to the stuff.
1:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get to Eddie real quick, because I think this is your first time on the show.
1:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have a question I really want to dive into.
1:15
[SPEAKER_00]: But real quick, tell the people who you are, because I think I will do it.
1:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And I will do some injustice, because it's like you just, you were just the one.
1:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So real quick, how would you tell, or how would you describe yourself to someone who's meeting you and watching for the first time today?
1:31
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, why do I have to do this?
1:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
1:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, already did in the intro, but I'm saying, I'm somebody who loves the Lord and diligent on living out his plans for my life.
1:46
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a fact.
1:47
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a fact.
1:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And they can just learn me from there.
1:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you go.
1:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
1:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to take a first question because we wrote down some questions and they're on my phone and I want to read them verbate on because we really did a lot of time just preparing for this.
2:05
[SPEAKER_00]: You have an amazing book coming out that I think is
2:09
[SPEAKER_00]: one of the ones that I believe everyone needs to be reading.
2:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said it's respectfully, and I think every black woman needs to really know more about your story.
2:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we spent some time just really trying to ask you the questions and also ask to see you all the questions.
2:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
2:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the very first question is people meet you now, and they see the fund.
2:33
[SPEAKER_00]: They see the court case that went crazy by row years ago.
2:40
[SPEAKER_00]: She is a queen and we're going to talk about that and they assume you came from nothing or you came from everything But you came from a non-bent room house.
2:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, gross point academy.
2:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, a Coca-Cola scholar with full rise at the table Yes And then at 23 years old You were living in your car.
3:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes
3:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and I'm like, sis, uh-oh.
3:06
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, fill in the gap.
3:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I did just for that.
3:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Because how can you go to that with that kind of resume?
3:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh.
3:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to, I need to understanding, because when you see that resume, there's no way in the world you're thinking that person's ending up in the car.
3:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, everybody's not, um, I should have put this free from disruption.
3:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
3:33
[SPEAKER_01]: just reality.
3:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's not free from disruption.
3:36
[SPEAKER_01]: This eruption can hit your life at any point in time.
3:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, that was a very big point of disruption.
3:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
3:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up in a two-parent household.
3:47
[SPEAKER_01]: My parents got divorced in college.
3:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I had been supporting myself since I was 19.
3:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So through their divorce case, their assets were frozen, money was tight, and when I fell on hard times myself, I thought I could just call home.
4:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I never imagined a moment where I couldn't call home.
4:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But the reality is, my parents were middle class.
4:11
[SPEAKER_01]: We weren't rich, quote-unquote, we were probably for that generation upper middle class blacks, but they never made
4:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But they were wise with what they did make.
4:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say that.
4:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So they made about 80,000 a year, 90,000 a year.
4:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And that could afford you that kind of lifestyle then.
4:32
[SPEAKER_01]: The cost of living ratio to salaries now is just, it's such a bigger disparity that I, to live the life of my parents, live I have to make little Latinx, just to live the life that they live.
4:48
[SPEAKER_01]: just that simple, that house that is nine bedrooms today is definitely a million dollar plus home.
4:56
[SPEAKER_01]: My parents got that home for $50,000.
4:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's my point.
5:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was 53 to be exact.
5:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and back then, that was a lot of a house.
5:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that was an expensive, we would call that
5:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so but but wise I remember my mom would go to like the tax lien auctions by tax leans get paid back get the properties for like always savvy okay always savvy but um Cassia's about my grandmother please her mother yeah and I talk about it in the book okay
5:38
[SPEAKER_01]: because she's the first investor.
5:40
[SPEAKER_01]: My grandmother was a domestic, okay.
5:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was playing in rich white people's homes.
5:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And she saw the financial advisor, but because her family, though, they migrated from the South to the North,
5:53
[SPEAKER_01]: They were actually was a period of time where they were wealthy in Georgia.
5:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So she knew what was going on when that man came to the house and she pulled him aside.
6:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, hey, look, I don't have what they have, but you put my money where you put their money.
6:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you talk about me going to college with options of full rides, when it was time for my mom to go to college, she saw her applying for scholarships.
6:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And my grandma said, what you doing that for?
6:18
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, well, I got to get to school.
6:21
[SPEAKER_01]: There's working at, oh, four, you cleaning houses.
6:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I really don't see.
6:26
[SPEAKER_01]: No other way, I can get to college.
6:29
[SPEAKER_01]: My grandmother told my mama, I'm not going to send any of my children to school cash.
6:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my goodness.
6:34
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, we don't have a no debt with this.
6:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was just like, huh?
6:39
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, okay, I just let me sit you down.
6:42
[SPEAKER_01]: She's having an invest in, she said, for this long, she said, I got a stock portfolio, a bond portfolio, she said, I got three houses.
6:50
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom was sitting there like, what's going on because they were living modest?
6:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So she said, well, what's really happening here?
6:58
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, I told him put my money, where they put their money.
7:01
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, and this is the result.
7:03
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, when I go out on that go on school,
7:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You talk about this in the fear of the freedom book?
7:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
7:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't gone to that job to get.
7:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I just started reading and being... Oh, thank you.
7:14
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm like, what would you say?
7:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever had a conversation with grandmother about what made her go that, like, why does she choose that?
7:24
[SPEAKER_01]: She is deceased now.
7:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love to have... Oh, we have so many go, but she doesn't have the great life.
7:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
7:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I mean...
7:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That was one of my closest friends.
7:33
[SPEAKER_01]: She lived a great life.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Every day from birth to 18, she was at the house from me from morning to evening.
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom was going higher than any in my grandmother's like, you know, I go higher than random parts and she said, I'll be there.
7:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have an amazing bond, an amazing bond.
7:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't get to ask her that because I didn't find that out too much later.
7:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
7:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have loved to ask her that, but even just the other day,
8:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mother said, keep this, keep this.
8:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said what she said, well, my mom taught me to keep this, keep this.
8:05
[SPEAKER_01]: She said they'll be worth some.
8:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So my mother just a few weeks ago started going through the coins.
8:09
[SPEAKER_01]: One coin was like $20,000.
8:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Another coin is $40,000.
8:14
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
8:14
[SPEAKER_01]: My grandma was a bad woman.
8:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Grandma was a bad man.
8:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So she's the first investor.
8:19
[SPEAKER_01]: My great-great-grandmother's college educated.
8:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
8:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I talk about her in the book, two ran seven businesses and had 52 shareholders on her land.
8:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Great grandma.
8:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Women that do that.
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I'm about to say.
8:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Great great grandmother had that grandmother had this mother.
8:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes.
8:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not even a question.
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But what what do you say?
8:41
[SPEAKER_00]: What is one thing that you got from mother?
8:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Building credit the traditional way as slow and confusing.
8:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And most credit cards want you to rack up debt just to boost your score.
8:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, I used to think that you had to choose between staying debt-free or having a good credit score.
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye!
9:01
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9:02
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9:11
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9:14
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9:16
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9:16
[SPEAKER_00]: They are doing something different.
9:19
[SPEAKER_00]: They help you build credit the right way, without the debt track.
9:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen people go from no credit to a 700 plus score using their system, and they did it completely debt-free.
9:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Say one more time.
9:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Completely debt-free.
9:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Over 150,000 people have left five star reviews on App Store.
9:37
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9:41
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9:45
[SPEAKER_00]: These aren't just numbers.
9:46
[SPEAKER_00]: These are real people getting approved for homes and getting better interest rates.
9:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the truth, every month you wait is another month of paying higher interest rates on everything.
9:57
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9:58
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of money.
9:59
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10:06
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10:09
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10:16
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10:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, handling money, and that's all about it in the book, too.
10:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
10:27
[SPEAKER_01]: They had me handling money very, very young.
10:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Very, very young.
10:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you talked about it before, like, they even had, like, accounts before you even read, but then when you started reading, you had ledgers, you had, you had all this stuff alone.
10:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, I had a bank ledger starting it, too.
10:43
[SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's the credit union at the church, and then I'd have to go deposit $1 to $2.
10:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I go put it in the bank.
10:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I would go put it in the bank at the church.
10:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So I started handling money early.
10:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, I started fundraising very young, too.
11:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know how, like, you know, those popcorns fundraiser, you've got his key.
11:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's got, and this fundraiser, girl, scouts, boy, scouts, whatever.
11:11
[SPEAKER_01]: My mother did not do the fundraising for me.
11:14
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, I'll equip you with my address book, but you have to make the ask yourself.
11:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So because I had to ask, I've never had any fears or concerns asking anybody from money.
11:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I still don't to this day.
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you don't know.
11:26
[SPEAKER_00]: We could tell you.
11:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I will fundraise.
11:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
11:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's that.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But back to your question, I said, if you weren't fee from disruption, though, I grew up in this very rich culture, very rich family as far as just history and legacy and exposure and accomplishments, but just that one incident, just through us off our rocker.
11:47
[SPEAKER_01]: through us off our rocker.
11:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And it took time to just even recover.
11:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, whoa, I was like, I never imagined I couldn't call home.
11:55
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean?
11:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, it was not a good time.
11:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew it was bad when she had her best friend cover my storage when I had to move out the apartment to go live in the car.
12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, well, I'm just like $400, like, what is happening here?
12:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, oh, I said, don't worry about me.
12:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You still have Ashley at home.
12:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I'm going to figure out life.
12:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was 23 at the time.
12:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just, it was more of an adventure.
12:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And my faith carried me through.
12:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Because every day I got up, they can it was the breakthrough.
12:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like seven months.
12:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I get a breakthrough to two hundred and ten days in.
12:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But every day I come saying, this is the day, this is the day.
12:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
12:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So my optimism and my faith carried me through a rough time in my life where I wasn't depressed during it other than one time I hit rock bottom and I was like, Lord, this is not fair.
12:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I did everything I was supposed to.
12:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to school.
12:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I still are grades.
12:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I treat people well.
12:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, this is evil.
12:56
[SPEAKER_01]: you've got to do something to help me out and things turned around for me.
13:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Lord.
13:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
13:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, they did.
13:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a brand new book that'll be coming out here in a couple of days.
13:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Called Fearless Freedom is behind you a manifesto for unlocking wealth and equality for all.
13:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
13:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Why this book and why are you releasing it today?
13:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the book gives a
13:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Playbook for how we can have an equitable society.
13:30
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing's the publisher and the book team even asked me, they said, I don't even know if we know what equality actually looks like.
13:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Because none of us have actually lived through it.
13:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would have to take time to sit around and just literally meditate.
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, God, I said, okay, it looks safer.
13:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like less crime because there's more opportunity.
13:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I said it looks like an equal distribution of wealth.
13:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to really like dig deep to what does that look like?
13:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what is the roadmap on how do we get there from a policy standpoint?
14:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I met with attorneys, we drafted legislation, that's in the book, it's in the appendix and the back of, this is how we can establish what I like to call demographic equity.
14:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up in Detroit,
14:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I grew up, Coleman Young was the mayor.
14:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And he had a mandate that every single contract of the city had to reflect the demographics of the city.
14:26
[SPEAKER_00]: OK.
14:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So Detroit was 88% black at the time.
14:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So 88% of the contracts were going to black people.
14:32
[SPEAKER_00]: OK.
14:33
[SPEAKER_01]: 80% everything was going to black people, but had to city actually been 88% white.
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It would have been going to white people.
14:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
14:40
[SPEAKER_01]: His theory was not about race.
14:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not necessarily even about a minority mandate.
14:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It was you have to serve the people who serve you.
14:47
[SPEAKER_01]: If these people are paying tax dollars, if these people are who were residing, who were servicing, it has to serve them.
14:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So this was just common sense, fair funding.
14:56
[SPEAKER_01]: This was nothing magical, okay?
14:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So um we have model legislation in the book to establish that.
15:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Now what got me to that point?
15:05
[SPEAKER_01]: was this.
15:06
[SPEAKER_01]: As I run the furthest fund for anybody who doesn't know me, it's the nation's first venture capital fund built by women of color for women of color.
15:14
[SPEAKER_01]: In prior to our existence, the black woman, average fund raised was only $30,000.
15:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And we came on a scene cutting the million dollar checks.
15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And we drew a lawsuit for alleged discrimination, quote, unquote, that we won after 13 months and finally got it permanently dismissed.
15:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But going through this process, I said there has to be a better way.
15:39
[SPEAKER_01]: There has to, I said, if you say you want to race free environment, I said, well, I want to race free environment, we're not there yet.
15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, so how do we get to a place where we are in a race free environment?
15:49
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that look like?
15:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's when I met on policies and figuring out how do we get demographic equity?
15:55
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we get this money to flow of equal distribution?
15:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I wrote the book.
16:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a memoir of the court case in there with a playbook.
16:05
[SPEAKER_00]: love it, love it.
16:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen y'all, what we're doing today, I've only done is for two people, actually.
16:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, two people.
16:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Her sister is well, Sarah Jay's Roberts, and she's the second one.
16:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have purchased a hundred books.
16:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, because I just really do believe in this book and I believe in this message and this important.
16:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to tell you how you can get one of those 100 books.
16:34
[SPEAKER_00]: We've already paid form.
16:35
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be shipped directly to you when the book comes out.
16:39
[SPEAKER_00]: But you got to stay today and I'm going to give you the instructions on how to get it.
16:42
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, because this book I believe is it
16:46
[SPEAKER_00]: We need it.
16:46
[SPEAKER_00]: We definitely need it.
16:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Aaron, I want to let it first.
16:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pause there.
16:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
16:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, if it's in your support.
16:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I gotta do that.
16:55
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm very, very grateful.
16:57
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm very, very grateful.
16:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Your message is needed.
17:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw this and I was, when I saw this, yes, I was thinking about you.
17:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the wealth gap.
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I am individual network.
17:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to read you the numbers.
17:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to tell me, what is your feeling when you hear this?
17:13
[SPEAKER_00]: White men, 189,000, $230,000.
17:14
[SPEAKER_00]: White women, 142,000, $150.
17:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinkin' about your equality.
17:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Number three, black men, $18,200.
17:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Black women, like 15.
17:37
[SPEAKER_00]: When you see that as a black woman with your fear this fun and your mission that is specifically for helping black woman get access to funding to build their business, what's the feeling that you feel when you hear those numbers?
17:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I've seen so many.
18:00
[SPEAKER_01]: In the line of work that I do, I see statistics all the time.
18:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
18:06
[SPEAKER_01]: these numbers are real and just that graph itself is just like you can't be telling me that the most educated demographic in the country is at the bottom.
18:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's almost like I actually more and like how does that even happen?
18:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
18:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just so layered in systemic issues that exist in the United States of America.
18:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I haven't had a feeling by it anymore because I've just seen him so much, but that's what that shows you.
18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: That how could the most educated demographic be at the bottom of anything of financial reward?
18:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It shows you that what we've been taught as a system just as network.
18:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll explain how this happens though.
18:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So talk to us as we know the largest and fastest growing industry, I can explain how it's widening at a rapid rate.
19:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't explain how this happens.
19:03
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going back to redlining.
19:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going back to so many different things.
19:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But why this is increasing very fast right now is that the technology industry is the fastest growing industry as we see in the world, not just in America,
19:22
[SPEAKER_00]: and then you're capital black woman and black man, we're at the bottom.
19:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
19:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why it keeps going, yeah, because it's actually a boy's club.
19:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why it keeps going so fast.
19:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It was existing before, but that gap keeps going at rapid speed due to the technology industry.
19:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
19:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the technology industry, which is where the sad part is, and I talk about it in the book,
19:50
[SPEAKER_01]: The largest investor or pension funds is the tuition of money, pension funds.
19:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Pinching funds are built off the backs of a lot of black and brown people.
20:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking public workers.
20:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So they take this money.
20:05
[SPEAKER_01]: and they invested in venture capital, which is a 92% male industry, and that money then goes to these 92% men that are white, I'm sorry, 90% white male industry, it goes to them and then it goes to their white startups when they receive the cash.
20:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have all of this black and brown labor producing this machine and the money barely goes back into that community.
20:32
[SPEAKER_00]: how, and I know you're in a mission to change this, but can this even change?
20:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Like can we really get in there?
20:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And it has to be changed in policy because I'm not leaving this up to good judgment.
20:45
[SPEAKER_01]: This we can't leave that up to good judgment.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the policy change.
20:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, your whole face was, you said it's all your face area.
20:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, no, in policy.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you have to go in.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to have to be forced.
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think you should be because most pension funds for public workers, they're ran by municipalities.
21:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a policy thing, and it can change.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be just like mere common young said, hey, the contracts of this city got to go to the people.
21:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So if we can look at the demographics of that, then that's the same way that the cash should be flowing.
21:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you are a public worker, you need to demand that your money goes back to your community.
21:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that simple, especially in the United States.
21:25
[SPEAKER_01]: In the US, mind you.
21:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's like by 20, it says 40 something will have what they call a majority, minority, or power that they want to put it.
21:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Majority is going to be black and braille.
21:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, me, you know, there's one thing I have learned with my show is that we have a lot of people who are not really aware of certain things, so when we say VC fund, can you really just break that down for the say someone who's never, they've heard it, but they need to understand what that means and how your company is one of the leading companies in that space specifically for black woman, because I know a lot of people want to ask me in the comments, okay, what does VC mean?
22:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Get into it, or can I get into it as a middle class W2 worker?
22:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You can.
22:15
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's the path.
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah
22:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I've lobbied that one when I first came in.
22:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is layered one is very simple.
22:23
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a lot of, I would say, acronyms terminology.
22:27
[SPEAKER_01]: VC is not as difficult as it may sound or sound intimidating, just due to lack of familiarity.
22:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Venture capital is exactly if you same shark tank.
22:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You are exchanging cash for ownership.
22:38
[SPEAKER_01]: People come to us and they say, hey,
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a business.
22:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you put $500,000 in my business and I'm going to give you 10% ownership of it?
22:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We call it cash for equity.
22:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just cash for ownership of your business.
22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we get paid from that when somebody exits their business or we can sail to another investor when they get other investors on board, but it has to be some type of liquidation of it.
23:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Or we can just sell off our ownership to somebody too.
23:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, do you think that that is a wise move for everyone in beginning stages?
23:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if I have a business and I come to a BC and ask for funding,
23:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, I would say there's certain industries that works best for the tech industry has the potential to have the unicorns.
23:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's just where it works best.
23:22
[SPEAKER_01]: We do do a lot of consumer package goods, is there are companies that do exit in the billions and even in the high-hundred millions, which is any form of a product, whether it's a shampoo, whether it's a makeup product, any form of a product.
23:39
[SPEAKER_01]: That's as an entrepreneur know, I don't advise that for everybody because it's very aggressive.
23:45
[SPEAKER_01]: We're looking for you to exit in five to seven years because a fun cycle for us is only 10 years.
23:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So we got to get you in and get you out.
23:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's aggressive.
23:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You can be the healthy 15 million dollar annual reoccurring company.
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't even trick capital.
23:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when it comes to black women, I just thought about this.
24:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious that I got to go back.
24:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't forget that.
24:04
[SPEAKER_00]: What's that?
24:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to go back to music and anybody get involved.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I would just by to ask that question.
24:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, go ahead.
24:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So can anybody get involved specifically a W2 employer employee?
24:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
24:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Middle class, right?
24:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And then too, let's say if the answer is no, which I think it is, correct me if I'm wrong.
24:23
[SPEAKER_00]: If I want to be a business as a black woman today, I'm curious, do you know what are the top three industries I should be looking in if I don't know what I should be looking in too?
24:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: The unfortunate part about the why there's a no, they want you to be an accredited investor.
24:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And accredited investor is you've got to make at least 200,000.
24:46
[SPEAKER_01]: How's so?
24:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's either 300 or 400.
24:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
24:49
[SPEAKER_01]: These things change all the time with the SEC, or you've got a million bucks.
24:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
24:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So.
24:55
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not going to be the average.
24:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You see what I'm saying?
24:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why.
24:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason why I've talked to the SEC about it, I used my grandmother actually as a case study.
25:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I said my grandmother was a domestic, and this is what she made, but this is what she was able to achieve.
25:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have to realize I think it's like between 1955 and I talk about in the book, the stock market for X.
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And only I think maybe 1% of Americans were participating.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And of blacks, she was like in that point, 1% or something.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So she was able to gain from that.
25:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But has she been restricted because of her own salary, she wouldn't even been afforded that opportunity.
25:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So technically by the standards they have, my grandmother does not qualify.
25:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But she was savvy enough as smart enough that she actually would have been a participant and she would have been fine.
25:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Very much so.
25:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what they claim is their guard rails for making sure only because it's very high risk that only people have enough to get involved.
25:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm like, you give everybody how's their freedom of choice with their money anyway.
25:56
[SPEAKER_01]: They go spend it waste to regardless why they can't have freedom of choice here.
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Your guard railing that, but you not guard railing
26:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I just as much as risk walking into the casino.
26:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I have a lot of mixed feelings about that.
26:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But then you...
26:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I was going back and forth my mixed feelings.
26:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm literally just, I'm like, this doesn't make any sense to me.
26:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because an opportunity to acquire wealth should be for everybody.
26:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's, yes, yes.
26:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they messed up that so many things else in their life is on them.
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: If I made the decision to get in, and as long as I know everything that I'm doing, if I made that decision, it should be my right to make that decision or not.
26:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, now Barack Obama did change some things before he used to be that for even the startups, but now you can even get small shares in the startups and it doesn't matter so that that did get changed then you asked about industries if you're a black woman what industries to go into.
26:55
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you funding right now with your business?
26:57
[SPEAKER_01]: What is always, people are like, hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
27:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, there are a lot of opportunities our latest fund, as you know, is an Africa.
27:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are a lot of opportunities, whether it's agricultural, whether it is, um, health tech.
27:33
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just so many different ones.
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would never tell somebody to go into just for the sake of industry.
27:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I do believe there has to be a level of passion combined with where opportunity exists.
27:45
[SPEAKER_01]: because entrepreneurship can get so hard that I need something to be motivating you beyond the fact that you found this to be good on paper.
27:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
27:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I need you to know when the chips are falling off, are you going to be able to rise above this?
27:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't care about it beyond the fact that you just heard it makes money, we're going to be in a situation.
28:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a part.
28:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why there are certain industries that do present those opportunities, but you have to have some type of intersection of industry knowledge and passion.
28:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say that.
28:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
28:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Now let's stay there.
28:15
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanna ask you this question.
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I found this so interesting.
28:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You closed the coding store in college, thinking you had failed.
28:29
[SPEAKER_00]: but years later, which this is what caught me on my way, you closed the clothing store.
28:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And then years later, you pulled the financials back up and the business, you said on the, in this thing, it was still profitable the whole time.
28:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I laughed.
28:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So why did you close the business?
28:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I laughed.
28:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I laughed.
28:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I started that business as a college student.
28:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
28:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did not have the maturity to write the way of entrepreneurship at that time.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: What I did, I made a promise to myself that I said, one day, I was going to be the business investor.
29:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I had been looking for.
29:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So that promise looks like the fearless fun today.
29:10
[SPEAKER_01]: God, you.
29:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But some days, we would be in the reins.
29:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Some days, we'd be up 50,000.
29:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And for a 20 year old and 21 year old woman, I was like, I must have been good at this.
29:21
[SPEAKER_01]: What is happening?
29:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went back to look at those financials and all I could do was just laugh, like once I gained the maturity to know that this has just had cycles.
29:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, and you have to just ride the wave that I just like, I was like, Erin, what was this?
29:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
29:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But right before the experience, right before the experience, so much so that one job that I got.
29:46
[SPEAKER_01]: post college after our close to store was Nellie's Apple Bottoms, worked there for 30 days in the company guys sold and then they got rid of all their staff.
29:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It let me know that when I went to the look for a job for security that it wasn't security, that I could have just stayed at the store.
30:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I could have just wrote the wave at the store and that I had to accept that airing you were created through business in this earth and when you went to go off of God's plan for your life just for 30 days it caused way more disruption.
30:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't have been living out the car all that but God still took me from my deets or still coming to my destination.
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I was seven months later I was back in my own business a PR and marketing company.
30:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know I was leaving I'm gonna have it but I was back to entrepreneurship.
30:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never worked for anybody else since
30:36
[SPEAKER_00]: How does that feel?
30:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Could you know, that's not the average case or a story for the average woman, right?
30:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So how would you encourage someone who's saying, you know what, I wanna be like you?
30:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you're living your dream, you've learned a lot.
30:54
[SPEAKER_00]: We see you all over, but at the same time, they don't see the things that are not public.
31:00
[SPEAKER_00]: The loan nice, the attacks behind closed doors.
31:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, as a brother, I don't know what you went through when you were at home going through that attack.
31:08
[SPEAKER_00]: right, but it's like, how will you encourage someone today saying, wow, she only worked one job her adult life and the rest of it is all been her own business, her own thing.
31:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm curious.
31:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you give us what's what's one positive?
31:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And then what is one thing that you don't hear entrepreneurs say publicly?
31:27
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, it's not a negative, but it's just, it's not the best thing either.
31:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we hear publicly now.
31:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, what'll be here?
31:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there was a season where entrepreneurship was getting sexy.
31:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody was like, put your job, go start a business season.
31:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember when that was happening, and I was just like, who's advising these people?
31:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, no, you ain't want to work your job to you can buy yourself out of it.
31:51
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
31:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Before you just go and jump in there, but I Oh, I'm taking the leap of favor.
31:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You guys can wait without one of the leap of faith.
31:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I took that is not what I did I was actually pushed out, but it was definitely still my destiny to be in business.
32:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah
32:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I've lived a business since I was a little girl.
32:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the kid with the lemonade stand.
32:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when something's pulling that shoe so much and just pulling that show spirit, you're creating it to do it.
32:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just creating it to do it.
32:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know if I would give that advice of, oh, gum do it, I did.
32:24
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
32:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You may go left, but I would say that,
32:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It has to be something in the one in alignment with your purpose.
32:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I get people may hear my story and be inspired, but your journey is your journey.
32:39
[SPEAKER_01]: My journey is my journey.
32:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we talk about the obstacles of entrepreneurship enough to say that I do think that they are heard now.
32:46
[SPEAKER_01]: That season of entrepreneurship being sexy.
32:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's out the window, because so many people ran to it thinking it was sexy, realizing it had all of what comes with it.
32:56
[SPEAKER_01]: it just does.
32:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just the nature of business.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to succeed at it, if you want to succeed at it, there is there's a cost for everything in life.
33:04
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a trade-off for everything in life, and that's just a trade-off for it.
33:08
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you book Fearless Freedom?
33:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh.
33:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, my teen, uh, one of my teen members, I'm not gonna say her name.
33:16
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, I needed to ask this question specifically for me.
33:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So correct me if this is right or wrong, all right?
33:22
[SPEAKER_00]: She said in 2020, a man from PayPal got into Zoom call with you.
33:27
[UNKNOWN]: Uh-huh.
33:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I going to write it right?
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in a book.
33:31
[SPEAKER_00]: As she said, in 2020, a man from PayPal, got her in a Zoom call with the, and asked you what you would do with 10, with a $10 million check.
33:42
[SPEAKER_00]: That would have made you $50 million.
33:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Funds at fund size overnight, your partners wanted to start at five.
33:52
[SPEAKER_00]: You landed at 20.
33:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You've written that you missed the moment and you would take that, you would take it back.
34:00
[SPEAKER_00]: What was, tell us more about that.
34:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I remember the two things can be true.
34:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
34:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Did we, you know, receive an opportunity?
34:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I said, but did we seize it now?
34:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh!
34:14
[SPEAKER_01]: No, if Laura, this one is going to take me a minute to unpack.
34:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you say, you receive the opportunity, I'll break it down.
34:24
[SPEAKER_01]: What happened?
34:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It's post George Floyd.
34:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
34:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody got commitments out too.
34:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a wonderful mentor.
34:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't even, I don't even say his name right now.
34:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Only because he's a doctor, only because I don't want anybody to be like, oh, she had like the direct track to get into this situation.
34:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, because I, this was still fair that we were getting this done and I ended up in a meeting.
34:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And he doesn't work at PayPal anymore.
34:59
[SPEAKER_01]: This guy that my mentor put me along the track to meet.
35:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
35:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, I think at that time, we'd only raised about a million point five.
35:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, I have a problem.
35:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a solution.
35:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to deploy this money.
35:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
35:17
[SPEAKER_01]: If I cut you a, he starts, if I cut you a timid and dollar check, what is that going to do for you?
35:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, well, since right now, we don't want any LP, which is an investor in the fund to be more than 20% of a fund size.
35:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you don't want somebody to have so much control over your fund.
35:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Because then they can tell you what to do with your fund, right?
35:34
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll be a majority owner, basically.
35:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And at that time, our target goal was only to raise $5 million for a test case.
35:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
35:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Have a fund.
35:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, if you cut me a check for 10 million, that means our fun size now has to be 50 and we'll go out and raise the other almost about 30 something difference.
35:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I was ready to take the check.
35:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I have partners at the time that were not okay.
36:03
[SPEAKER_01]: They were like, oh, no, we're new to this industry.
36:06
[SPEAKER_01]: This is too much money.
36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a too much money.
36:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, and I thought the Bible, I said, you're not believe in yourself, or you're not believing this?
36:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I call it the advisors quickly.
36:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I talk about the advisors of a variety of stamps and then Tracy ran.
36:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I'm done with a situation.
36:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I ain't getting this to play small.
36:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And they get on the phone immediately.
36:27
[SPEAKER_01]: They said, do you know how many black or VCs first of all exist with their own funds?
36:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you also know how many people have been waiting to have a call like you guys have had in this industry they said and why would you ever try to stop money from getting to our community.
36:46
[SPEAKER_01]: At that point they were still hesitant but they willing to compromise we don't want to fund size of 50 we want to fund size of 20 and then we ended up oversubscribing the one for 20 for 25.8 when it closed.
36:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We could easily done 100.
37:01
[SPEAKER_01]: because call after call after call was just like that.
37:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Boom, but we had a name for ourselves going into the post George Floyd positive DEI movement to where we had already had institutional money.
37:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Lisc was already invested.
37:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, fifth or was already invested.
37:18
[SPEAKER_01]: We already had like big corporate names in our pact.
37:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So when everybody had this commitment, they were looking to see who was already in the space.
37:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And because we were already in the space, we were like the perfect fit.
37:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody had minority focus this women focus this black focus this Latino focus this we were the people that they were looking for Yeah, yeah 100 easily 100 easily and With saying something not To I don't I don't want to come off to negative But I will say this you need to be very careful when you choose who you want to align with your vision That's a fact
38:00
[SPEAKER_01]: that's in life, that's in marriage, that's in everything, yes, yes, that is woof, yes, that's a fact, yes, not bad people, but just everybody does not have the same capacity, a vision, that's a fact, and I started this company on my own and I was like, hey,
38:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm back, it's just me, but I'm like, hey, I didn't get in this to play small.
38:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I got into this to have the impact that we have today, where we've created thousands of jobs from our work.
38:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I got into, we have created so many millionaires.
38:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
38:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just like, no, we would, we stay small, we wouldn't have been able to do that.
38:44
[UNKNOWN]: No.
38:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But I heard some, I do want to talk about, because I'm on your show.
38:47
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's talk about it.
38:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we know Anthony Preaches, no debt.
38:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh-oh.
38:54
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I don't believe in consumer debt.
38:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go.
38:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, but I want them to understand the difference between what I do versus that.
39:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
39:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I know they're probably like, he said, no, that, they talk about you going to have ownership.
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to have that with these people all this.
39:10
[SPEAKER_01]: This is different.
39:12
[SPEAKER_01]: If you do not participate in this, like I said, the wealth gap just keeps wide and wide and wide and wide.
39:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe in acquiring too much debt personally, as a person, but as a business owner in certain businesses, you have to in order to grow and scale at rapid rates, you do need capital.
39:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, how you get that capital, if you can go raise 100 million in grants, good luck, but it'll be nice.
39:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're going to have to have extra pools outside of revenue.
39:45
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to grow and scale at a rapid rate, or let me tell you what's happening.
39:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Our other counterparts are doing it.
39:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll be left behind.
39:55
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
39:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what that is there.
39:58
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll be growing and scaling at a rapid rate, gaining so much more wealth.
40:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And you'll be left behind.
40:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But no, I don't believe in personal debt like that.
40:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a mortgage.
40:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, as an entrepreneur, when you're talking about living out your car for seven months, you start to make decisions differently.
40:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I'm serious.
40:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I never allowed myself to have debt that I couldn't cash out on in any given moment.
40:20
[SPEAKER_00]: For real.
40:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Seriously.
40:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never known that about you.
40:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Down to my house.
40:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you serious?
40:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very serious.
40:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I said, house paid off, car paid off, a millionaire, multi-millionaire, and a house in what my husband liked to call, I call it the community.
40:36
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, babe, this is the hood.
40:40
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, don't worry, I'll be able to get us out of this, but how should you have in the States, right?
40:45
[SPEAKER_01]: The house had got a definitely ain't in the house.
40:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to say, we're in airport and got a house, but it's like my husband will have a baby.
40:52
[SPEAKER_01]: My husband does not live like, he won't make, I should say.
40:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the difference is, my husband's African, and they don't have that.
41:01
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
41:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So anything to have is cash.
41:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Cash.
41:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's just like, okay, so he comes to my place in the state.
41:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's just like the house inside is beautiful.
41:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And the house is nice.
41:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But a pool.
41:14
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, but the area, he said, babe, I can't walk outside if we're more than I said, don't try it.
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, don't try it.
41:25
[SPEAKER_01]: do not try that.
41:26
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, OK, so he got us looking at places in Atlanta, but nonetheless, that was how I chose to live my life.
41:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And still choose it even during marriage.
41:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm not a girl that's going to, like, I don't have student loans in my husband married me.
41:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have debt like that.
41:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I keep a little bit of debt just so I can keep my 804 or 770 credit school.
41:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I got you.
41:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I got you.
41:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's only for a clear emergency, but my emergency is not going to extend what I can't pay off.
41:53
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so good.
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't believe in that.
41:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but you have to realize I came from an extreme situation that it's not that I don't even believe in it.
42:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it doesn't work.
42:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So, at that point, expand on that, though, era, I know it doesn't work.
42:09
[SPEAKER_01]: More ditching past that don't work.
42:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you listen to the internet, when you listen to social media, no, you say bad, more debt than you got cash.
42:18
[SPEAKER_00]: They say you want to leverage as much as you can to make more cash.
42:24
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you can't have, I just don't think that's why I see my substance.
42:30
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem is most of people are nine to five.
42:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
42:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're used to a certain check every week.
42:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
42:36
[SPEAKER_01]: When I don't have that certain check every week, and my cash flow fluctuates from month to month, I don't have that luxury to say, oh, I will get to it next week.
42:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Or I can get to it next week.
42:46
[SPEAKER_01]: In entrepreneurship, if some catch on fire or something goes left, you don't have a next week.
42:49
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a fact.
42:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You have right then.
42:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Right now.
42:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I got my house, my house was like 324.
42:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I needed to make sure I got a house that if I if anything hits the fan, I can catch up.
43:00
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a fact.
43:02
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't I don't I don't I don't I don't say I never live beyond my means, but because of life circumstances I didn't live beyond my means people like, oh my gosh, your car.
43:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I had that car about eight good years Please and got it used coming off the lot like see I don't make decisions like let's go.
43:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's it's it across you
43:23
[SPEAKER_01]: When you've seen yourself go from job to the car, like that will cost you.
43:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't going back from job to the car, business to net into the car.
43:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
43:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, here's the question, no for you.
43:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you can answer this one.
43:36
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you married to my brother.
43:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm saying it's publicly beautiful woman, successful, educated, got money, but still living its lifestyle.
43:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And I say this respectfully, they'll be other beautiful women, success woman, but their lifestyle is way up here.
43:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
43:54
[SPEAKER_00]: What made you, was it was that, would you say that was because of what was rooted in you from your parents or whether just because of what you've been through with life you understand and you were able to be mature and stay in this area because we could take you and put you on someone else's and they're going to have... Oh, they go have 10 barcans, everything else.
44:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything.
44:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I give it to both.
44:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm that perfect.
44:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I've made mistakes.
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: No different than anybody with money has made mistakes.
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's that, but because I said I started handling money so young.
44:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I started having that.
44:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always been savvy.
44:38
[SPEAKER_01]: My mother, I talk about the book.
44:39
[SPEAKER_01]: She probably had a closet worth.
44:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how much, but my mom is wanting to get the $3,000 rest.
44:45
[SPEAKER_01]: She'd shoot five to 30 bucks.
44:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's amazing the way she can get a sale.
44:49
[SPEAKER_00]: My mom was a, she would go to the store.
44:50
[SPEAKER_01]: We've always been savvy though.
44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And I say, and that's generational.
44:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
44:54
[SPEAKER_01]: All the women, my great-great-grandmother, my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, my mother, my mother.
44:59
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.
44:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They've always been very savvy women.
45:02
[SPEAKER_01]: This is my sister has an honestly too.
45:05
[SPEAKER_01]: She has it too.
45:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Just, I mean, oh, she's a good, I would say it.
45:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not trying to tell her business, but she's a good, um, test case for this discussion.
45:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Though I became a millionaire as an entrepreneur, she became one working in 95.
45:19
[SPEAKER_00]: For real?
45:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
45:21
[SPEAKER_01]: completely two different paths around the same age for five years apart, but it happened for us around the same time, and I was like, this is so interesting.
45:30
[SPEAKER_01]: How this, we both got this done, but it also shows us we have to still make 10 times more than our parents.
45:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We still ain't living in the nine bedroom house like they were.
45:39
[SPEAKER_01]: You go and I'm saying, so I was like, whoa.
45:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It's cost of living definitely caught up, but we picked up that savviness.
45:47
[SPEAKER_01]: My sister's fly, you know, but she's gonna find the YSL shoes for, and she's, we, we, we always trade.
45:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, hey, she's like Aryan, she never has a sale.
45:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And they've never had one in history.
45:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to check it out right now.
46:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're just savvy like that.
46:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to have was in the latest season.
46:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, okay.
46:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
46:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I don't have that person in the latest season.
46:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never been even, I don't even get to new iPhone, but that's just me.
46:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
46:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just, I don't know.
46:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And you understand budgeting.
46:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Me and your husband have a conversation with my brothers.
46:19
[SPEAKER_01]: He understands budgeting more than me.
46:20
[SPEAKER_01]: He tried to keep me on the budget.
46:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
46:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
46:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So he comes with me.
46:25
[SPEAKER_01]: He would tell somebody who works by us.
46:28
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, if you send my wife from the bottom of my head,
46:36
[SPEAKER_01]: He, because Africans really have saving because they don't have a credit system.
46:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So he has it a little bit more than me.
46:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
46:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never had the discipline I'll be honest.
46:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a saver.
46:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But like what?
46:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I can stay underneath my means.
46:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
46:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a discipline to invest whale.
46:57
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's what it is.
47:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You have like, I have cash, but I have a discipline to invest whale.
47:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But you don't have so liquid cash in this savings.
47:06
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
47:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you do, right?
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, always keep something.
47:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
47:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not.
47:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, okay.
47:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I do more than even what are you every all rule is a six months swim whatever Yeah, it's a six months of your life.
47:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I can chill.
47:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I could chill.
47:18
[SPEAKER_01]: There we go and no Doug Ryan there yet.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to get more but I would be fine.
47:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the thing is
47:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to see my money grow.
47:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
47:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't like to put, I don't like to see a $100,000 just sitting there.
47:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like to see $50,000 just sitting there.
47:37
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not exciting for me.
47:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have a bigger discipline to invest in that actually due to save.
47:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Just because I'd rather see you get larger versus just, there is something stashed away in case something just goes left, yes.
47:50
[SPEAKER_01]: But the book, yes, in investments, anything that's, you know, income producing all of it, I have that excites me.
47:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what would you say your husband is?
48:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you say he's a saver investor or a spender?
48:04
[SPEAKER_00]: All of us got something.
48:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I am the spender and saver.
48:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, I'm a spender and investor.
48:10
[SPEAKER_01]: He's he's just more balanced.
48:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was by the same.
48:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But I told you it's just, it's, it's, it's due to environment, though, too.
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can't say it.
48:17
[SPEAKER_01]: That'll be his experience growing up in the States.
48:19
[SPEAKER_01]: He lived it.
48:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Seriously, he lived in Ghana for childhood and a lot of adulthood in UK.
48:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think people, you know, we all do become somewhat of a product environment.
48:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well.
48:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's be talking about a whole lot, y'all.
48:35
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, this was a great show.
48:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thank you.
48:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all, so this is what we're going to do.
48:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You made it to the end.
48:44
[SPEAKER_00]: All you got to do is go to anthonyoleneo.com for slash fearless.
48:49
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, that's anthonyoleneo.com for slash fearless.
48:52
[SPEAKER_00]: The first 100, you got to give us your first in your last name.
48:56
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to keep any of this information.
48:57
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to give us your email address so we can send you an email confirmation from the book sort that we purchased the books from.
49:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It is black owned here in DC and they're going to, and we need your physical mailing address.
49:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, here we clearly, whatever you put on that is what they're going to get.
49:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you put the wrong address on there, they're going to ship it to the wrong place.
49:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So just take it time and it's the first 100.
49:21
[SPEAKER_00]: If you get on there and it says no longer available, hey, jump over on Amazon or go to your local bookstore and purchase the book because I'm telling you right now, I think this book is going to be absolutely amazing.
49:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we've already purchased the books already there.
49:35
[SPEAKER_00]: First 100, that book story.
49:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So you'll get it from them.
49:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got the name of the bookstore, I purchased it from.
49:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you remember it?
49:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Loyalty.
49:41
[SPEAKER_00]: loyalty, so you're going to get it from that book store.
49:44
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so it's not going to come from Anthony or Neil or from Aryan or from Fearless Funds will come from them.
49:49
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
49:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So because we want to help her get the list and sell a lot of books.
49:54
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
49:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all, because with her story with what she's been through and what she's fought.
50:00
[SPEAKER_00]: through, um, man, during that season, I, I prayed for Erin at least every day.
50:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank you.
50:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, because I didn't like what was happening.
50:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't fair.
50:11
[SPEAKER_00]: What was happening.
50:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and a lot of just going on during that season.
50:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It was way more than I've even told you, or to show where anybody else was.
50:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
50:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we love you here at the table.
50:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Our community loves you.
50:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all, go get the book.
50:28
[SPEAKER_00]: If you didn't get the 100, go buy the book on Amazon or go to her website and figure out whatever story you want to buy it from.
50:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And we will love you.
50:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything else you want to leave the people with for you, go?
50:39
[SPEAKER_01]: No, this has been great.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't realize we were at the end.
50:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
50:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
50:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
50:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
50:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, get the book.
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Share it with somebody.
50:50
[SPEAKER_00]: What is one thing you think they'll learn?
50:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So we know what you're talking about in the bubble, what you think is one thing they'll walk away from after reading the books and okay, this is this impacted me.
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that people who actually see that having an equitable society is really possible because I make it clear and easy and simple.
51:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the dream that Martin Luther King had or any of our civil rights leaders had, it can actually be achieved.
51:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
51:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
51:19
[SPEAKER_00]: go get the book y'all listen we're gonna put all her information side to show notes follow her on instagram follow fearless fund go buy the book and anything extra will put it inside a link but go to anthonyl.com for slash fearless and you'll see the information alright we love y'all peace out see you next show