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EYL #73 Cloth Talk · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
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  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
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  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
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  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
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  Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States
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  Speaker 1: are here illegally, your next you will be fined nearly
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  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will
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  Speaker 1: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
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  Speaker 1: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
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  Speaker 1: border and families will be protected.
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  Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: All right, guys, welcome back. E y L.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: South Beach Edition. And you can't tell by the backdrop
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: because he's going to do the other side. But we
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: in Miami right now, the rain is outment. It's still
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: better weather than New York.
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  Speaker 2: We'll any day. We'll take that for sure.
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  Speaker 4: So, you know, we try to do interviews when we're
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: on the road, and we know sometimes we have it planned,
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: sometimes just impromptu. So this is an impromptu. We met
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  Speaker 4: a superstar in the tech world and somebody that we
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: really thought we would add value to the podcast. So
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  Speaker 4: kwame Uncle just a brilliant star in the tech world.
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  Speaker 4: He was actually just found out. He was a start
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  Speaker 4: the co founder of Black Angel Tech Fund, which was
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  Speaker 4: the first tech fund in America that was focused on
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: African American entrepreneurs, right, and now he's the CEO of
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  Speaker 4: Black Star Fund, which is a tech fund that looks
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  Speaker 4: for predominantly is where black people aretists are.
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  Speaker 5: The start is top twenty five black venture venture capitalists
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  Speaker 5: to watch from pitch book.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, man.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and Stanford, Stanford alumni. So we're gonna talk about
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  Speaker 4: that because that's an interesting within itself.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.
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  Speaker 4: But so yeah, yeah, and you're currently your firm is
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  Speaker 4: currently invested in nine companies.
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  Speaker 2: Right, nine companies that's right all over the country. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I mean humbly met you.
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  Speaker 5: We were at an event and we walked over like, hey, guys,
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  Speaker 5: I'm a huge fan. I'm like, Okay, this is great,
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  Speaker 5: and then as we spoke more, I'm like, wait, this
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  Speaker 5: guy is a superstar.
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  Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
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  Speaker 6: Before we jump into I want to say, you know,
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  Speaker 6: you got fans all over the world.
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  Speaker 2: I was just in Ghana, and.
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  Speaker 6: I just want to say, as a fan myself, I'm
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  Speaker 6: so proud of you all of the work you're doing
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  Speaker 6: and the impact that you're having on the consciousness, the
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  Speaker 6: business consciousness, the mindset of our people, not only in
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  Speaker 6: the United States but all over the world.
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  Speaker 4: No, I appreciate that. Thank you, and shout out to
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  Speaker 4: Ghana too. We're gonna talk about Africa a little later too,
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  Speaker 4: because I know your roots are from Ghana, right, your
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  Speaker 4: African American, first generation African America, your family, your parents
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  Speaker 4: have roots in their families from Ghana.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. Yeah, return, we just passed. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: we just stopped there for that.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, talking about Yeah, yeah, so I definitely want to
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  Speaker 4: talk about Ghana. But yeah, so, first and foremost, thank
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  Speaker 4: you for joining us.
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  Speaker 3: Appreciate it.
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  Speaker 2: It's my pleasure, of my honor.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So we're gonna jump right into the tech world because
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  Speaker 4: we haven't really covered tech that much and a lot
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  Speaker 4: of people have been asking us. So the first I
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  Speaker 4: want to start at Stanford because this is something not
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  Speaker 4: to graze over.
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  Speaker 3: People don't understand how powerful that school is.
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  Speaker 4: I think like thirty something billionaires in the tech world
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  Speaker 4: to have graduated from Stanford. Guys a lot of even
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  Speaker 4: so I think one particular professor still is a professor
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  Speaker 4: at Stanford, and a lot of guys take his class
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  Speaker 4: because he's a VC guy too, and he gives money
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  Speaker 4: to different the Airbnb through that today somebody, somebody did that.
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  Speaker 4: They Yeah, but I say that to say a lot
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  Speaker 4: of times people don't fully understand how networking is and
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  Speaker 4: network So coming out of such a prestigious claw off.
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  Speaker 4: As far as going to Stanford as an African American,
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  Speaker 4: I'm assuming you was in a minority. How has how
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  Speaker 4: was that experience and how has that experience helped you
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  Speaker 4: now that you're in the VC world yourself.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a great, great question. So lots of pieces,
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  Speaker 6: lots of parts there. You got to keep in mind
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  Speaker 6: that the times are very different. You know, I'm not
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  Speaker 6: sixty or seventy years I'm forty seven, so early nineties. Yeah,
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  Speaker 6: but the times were different. I meaning the first time
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  Speaker 6: I saw the Internet, I was a senior in college. Right,
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  Speaker 6: So when we talk about networking today and the ability
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  Speaker 6: to get connected to people through these incredible social networks
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  Speaker 6: that we have and it's easy, that was not our reality.
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  Speaker 6: That was not our world at the time. So it's
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  Speaker 6: much harder to get connected to people. And I'm fully
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  Speaker 6: transparent with you, I did not understand the power and
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  Speaker 6: prestige each of the Stanford name when I graduated as
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  Speaker 6: a minority student there there was a lot of the turmoil,
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  Speaker 6: and so when we graduated, we weren't thinking about, well,
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  Speaker 6: how can we start donating back to Stanford?
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  Speaker 5: It was expensive. I mean a lot of people get
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  Speaker 5: closer than that. Like a lot of times the schools
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  Speaker 5: have boosters right there, alumni and all their boosters. Like
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  Speaker 5: where we come from, it's like once we graduate schools, like, how.
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  Speaker 2: Can we pay it back?
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  Speaker 5: That's the loans, that's not to the school, that's right.
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  Speaker 6: And you don't understand that, like and part of the problem,
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  Speaker 6: I think again, it's a mindset.
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  Speaker 2: Right, I'm twenty two.
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  Speaker 6: I don't understand at that point in my life that
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  Speaker 6: I'm part of the elite country club, because in my mind,
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  Speaker 6: even though I was there, even though I have the diploma,
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  Speaker 6: I was not a part of the country club. I
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  Speaker 6: just didn't realize.
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  Speaker 3: It didn't feel like that.
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  Speaker 6: It didn't feel like it. So I didn't realize it,
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  Speaker 6: and it didn't feel like it. Now later in my
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  Speaker 6: professional life, I'm maturing. I'm understanding the power of networks.
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  Speaker 6: I'm understanding what I call success by association. I'm starting
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  Speaker 6: to understand those.
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  Speaker 4: Principles success by association. Can you explain, I interres I've
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  Speaker 4: never heard that before, but I understand what it means.
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  Speaker 4: But you explain that.
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  Speaker 2: I think we've got plenty of arguments about this.
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  Speaker 6: Okay, Yeah, So it doesn't mean that you will be
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  Speaker 6: successful simply because I'm Rashad's friend. But what it means
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  Speaker 6: is that I'm accelerating my ability to get to that
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  Speaker 6: place of success, and I'm establishing this intense credibility that
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  Speaker 6: I might not have on my own, but because I'm
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  Speaker 6: with you. So when I was a kid, my mom
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  Speaker 6: my mom even though she's half going to aint half British,
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  Speaker 6: so she had a British accidents, so she'd always go, well,
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  Speaker 6: you know, kwame buds of a feather flown.
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  Speaker 3: Together everybody in London?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, like what does that mean?
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  Speaker 6: But then you know, you get older, you figure out
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  Speaker 6: I was good.
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  Speaker 2: The cats that you roll with speak to who you.
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  Speaker 4: Are because I like what you said, because it's like
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  Speaker 4: a lot of times, how you look and how your
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: word things is extremely important. So peer pressure is something
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  Speaker 4: that we hear a lot growing up, and we always
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  Speaker 4: look at it from a negative connotation, like, but it's
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  Speaker 4: positive peer pressure. We spoke about that the podcast before
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  Speaker 4: and which you said as far as six by association.
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  Speaker 4: All the time growing up we had guilty by association.
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  Speaker 4: That happens all the time. You're guilty by association. You mean,
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  Speaker 4: like the people that you hang out with, you're going
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  Speaker 4: to be guilty just by hanging out with them. I
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  Speaker 4: never heard anybody say success by association. So it's like
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  Speaker 4: you got to change the way that we actually use
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  Speaker 4: words where we look at things, and it's like if
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  Speaker 4: we could be guilty by association, we could be successful.
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  Speaker 2: Bad language is important, it's triven.
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  Speaker 6: The thing is a lot of times it's math, right,
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  Speaker 6: what I guarantee you, you and your audience I already
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  Speaker 6: understand principles around the people you hang that. There's a
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  Speaker 6: phrase that we hear all the time and money, Right,
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  Speaker 6: your net worth is the average of the five people
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  Speaker 6: you spend the most time with. Right now, most people
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  Speaker 6: have heard that and know that what I'm saying, I'm
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  Speaker 6: just adding those two concepts together. Well, wait a second,
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  Speaker 6: Like you said, if we always talk about guilt by association,
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  Speaker 6: but we also know that your your net worth is
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  Speaker 6: the average of the five people you spend the most time with,
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  Speaker 6: then that means if you're around successful people, you're going
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  Speaker 6: to be successful by association. How they think about money,
• 8:04
  Speaker 6: how they think about life, how they live life, the
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  Speaker 6: decisions that they make. It becomes a part of your
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  Speaker 6: process because you're around them.
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  Speaker 2: Right I'll give you an example.
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  Speaker 6: I'm reading a book right now called The One Thing
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  Speaker 6: by Gary Keller, and it's this whole we've already heard
• 8:18
  Speaker 6: about time management and prioritizing.
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  Speaker 2: He makes it really simple.
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  Speaker 6: He say, look, you know, every day when you wake up,
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  Speaker 6: there's one thing that you need to do that will
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  Speaker 6: help you.
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  Speaker 2: To be to get the success faster. Focus on that.
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  Speaker 3: That's it.
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  Speaker 6: Focus on that thing, one thing at a time. Yeah,
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  Speaker 6: right right, So he said we got to do lists.
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  Speaker 6: He said, you need to start writing down success lists.
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  Speaker 6: What are the successful steps? And sometimes, like in my world,
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  Speaker 6: it's as easy as making one phone call. If you
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  Speaker 6: call this one person who you know loves you, supports you,
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  Speaker 6: is extremely successful and extremely well connected. But you're doing
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  Speaker 6: five other things under the pretense, well, I got these
• 8:57
  Speaker 6: other things I gotta do, but do this one first,
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  Speaker 6: so that at the end of the day, even if
• 9:01
  Speaker 6: you haven't finished your to do list, the fact that
• 9:03
  Speaker 6: you made that one call and got an appointment to
• 9:06
  Speaker 6: go see that person is going to start.
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  Speaker 2: To open up opportunities.
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  Speaker 7: Right.
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  Speaker 5: So that's that's that's that's what you said that you
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  Speaker 5: were part of the country club but you didn't feel
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  Speaker 5: like it.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what what was that like? Because this is.
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: Cali in the early nineties. How did you fight to
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: fight that that barrier?
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: How did how did I start to feel like I
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: was part of the country club?
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: Well both so, so like not feeling like it and
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: being it and then actually becoming aware of it, and
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: like how did that?
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  Speaker 2: Yes?
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  Speaker 6: Well, I mean the thing is is funny, man. It
• 9:34
  Speaker 6: feels like ancient history. But like when we saw all
• 9:36
  Speaker 6: the the barrage of those pain, painful videos of police brutality.
• 9:43
  Speaker 6: Right a couple of years ago now Ferguson and the
• 9:47
  Speaker 6: brother in Louisiana, and it was just like this, day
• 9:49
  Speaker 6: after day after day when I was in school, is
• 9:52
  Speaker 6: the first time we had a global viral video of
• 9:55
  Speaker 6: police brutality.
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  Speaker 5: R king, I'll never forget it. Actually happened on my
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: birthday and like ninety one, that's right. I was like
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: that crazy, I'll never forget it, And that's what I'm
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: thinking at that time. This is the timate of California.
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: That's exactly right, right, So for us, it was this
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: feeling of like, wait a second, this is the stuff
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: that was supposed to be happening in the sixties and
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: the seventies. I personally had experienced these issues with the police,
• 10:19
  Speaker 6: being profiled, being in a very I had guns put
• 10:22
  Speaker 6: in my head when I was in LA when I
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: was in high school, I had gotten attacked by the police.
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: They thought I'd stolen stuff. So it really hit home
• 10:29
  Speaker 6: and we and basically the feeling was if we're here
• 10:32
  Speaker 6: at this most elite school where we have all this power,
• 10:36
  Speaker 6: but we could be anywhere and be treated like a
• 10:38
  Speaker 6: Rodney King. Something's gotta change, right, But we weren't connected
• 10:42
  Speaker 6: to other campuses because again we didn't have the technology.
• 10:45
  Speaker 6: So that was a lot of the thing of feeling
• 10:47
  Speaker 6: like is this really for us? Do they let a
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: couple of us in? Are we really a part of
• 10:51
  Speaker 6: the thing?
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: So at what point do you get into tech then?
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: Because I know so obviously tech wasn't your main focus
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: going into college since it was just starting out things
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: on nature. So at what point do you decide I
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: want to be have a benure capital fund and invest
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: money into tech entrepreneurs.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: It's funny.
• 11:07
  Speaker 6: A friend of mine always says that the dots don't
• 11:09
  Speaker 6: connect when you look in front of you. So when
• 11:12
  Speaker 6: I look back, I actually got into tech when I
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: was ten years old. I literally started to learn how
• 11:18
  Speaker 6: to code when I was ten. I went to a
• 11:20
  Speaker 6: computer coding camp when I was in fifth grade. This
• 11:22
  Speaker 6: is like green screen, yeah you know what I mean.
• 11:25
  Speaker 6: And I was fascinated Star Wars. I was fascinated by technology,
• 11:29
  Speaker 6: and I was fascinated by production and just you know,
• 11:31
  Speaker 6: green screen and the whole creating of production through technology.
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: So it was actually in me when I was when
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: I was a younger person, and I believe it or not,
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: the editing software popular editing software used today, Adobe Premiere.
• 11:43
  Speaker 6: Right when I was in school, I was part of
• 11:46
  Speaker 6: the beta testing team of Adobe Premiere at one point,
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: oh of college. Yeah, so the idea that you know,
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: we can we can edit video using computers when I
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: went into college, that didn't exist by the end I
• 12:00
  Speaker 6: was testing that stuff. So technology had always been interesting
• 12:03
  Speaker 6: to me. I was working with Prince is how I
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: actually got into the tech world in a serious business way.
• 12:10
  Speaker 6: And he was obviously an extraordinary artist, but as a businessman,
• 12:15
  Speaker 6: he used to say, if you don't own your masters,
• 12:18
  Speaker 6: your masters own you. And when we see so many
• 12:21
  Speaker 6: artists today like Jay Z and all these incredible artists
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: who own their own stuff, they'll all say it was
• 12:26
  Speaker 6: because they talk to Prince. And he was an evangelist
• 12:29
  Speaker 6: for that for these younger artists. So he was in
• 12:32
  Speaker 6: the tech, he was in the ownership. My father grew
• 12:35
  Speaker 6: up in a village in Africa, in Ghana, no running water,
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: no electricity, and came to the States, got scholarships, became
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: a physician, and started buying land back home in Ghana
• 12:47
  Speaker 6: in the nineties. I know you guys do a lot
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: of stuff on real estate in the nineties. What's going
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: on now in twenty twenty. So my point is, as
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: a child, when I was see my dad at work,
• 13:01
  Speaker 6: it had his name, Vincent Aku md Inc on the door.
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: I never heard my dad talk about a boss. He
• 13:10
  Speaker 6: was the boss. My mother was the office manager and
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: the business operations first.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: So at dinner they were talking business at old times.
• 13:18
  Speaker 6: When I was ten, I learned how to balance the
• 13:21
  Speaker 6: corporate checkbook on the computer and got paid. So I
• 13:26
  Speaker 6: was on my parents' business payroll doing there at ten
• 13:30
  Speaker 6: at ten years old. At this point, are they familiar
• 13:33
  Speaker 6: with computers the way you know it? A lot of
• 13:35
  Speaker 6: times kids know more about technology than parents. I'm so
• 13:39
  Speaker 6: grateful they didn't know anything about computers except how important
• 13:41
  Speaker 6: it was. Yeah, and they bought me my first computer when.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I was nine.
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: How Prince. People talk about Prince a lot, like you said,
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: as far as being one of the greatest musicians of
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: all time. But I'm a huge Nas fan. And I
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: remember Nas was on another podcast s Frank Champs, and
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: he was talking about when he first met Prince and
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: years ago, like in ninety nine, and he asked Prince
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: to do a record with him, and Prince told them.
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: He was like, do you own your masters? And now
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: I said, I own my masters, and he was like,
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: when you own your masters? We could have a conversation
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: and he was like that really inspired. So it's like
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: being around Prince. How was he as far as the
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: business acumen the business side of things?
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Extraordinary? Man.
• 14:24
  Speaker 6: I remember I had a conversation with him one time
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: in his office, just the two of us. He said, look,
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: let me tell you something. He said, I usually end
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: the show playing purple rang, he said, within an hour.
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: I don't care if I'm playing in front of two
• 14:37
  Speaker 6: hundred people or if I got sold out at the stadium.
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: I know how many T shirts were sold. I know
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: how much merchandise were sold. I know how many Coca
• 14:47
  Speaker 6: colas were bought.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: We spoke about that when we were talking.
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: I think it's like a very first episode right when
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: we talked about how innovative he was when he was
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: packaging tickets, merchandise, all these things at the vendings, all
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: packaged all together as one thing, and how now that's
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: the standard. Twenty years later, people are just realizing, like
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: what he set forth.
• 15:08
  Speaker 6: Exactly I mean you think about subscriptions now Netflix and
• 15:11
  Speaker 6: everything else. He created the New Power Generation music club
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: in the late nineties where you'd pay nine dollars a
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: month or whatever it was, and then you get music
• 15:21
  Speaker 6: and you get merch and everything else.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: He created that.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: It's crazy, so before streaming, before it was Apple for
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: any of that.
• 15:28
  Speaker 6: So my point in terms of the tech stuff is
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: that as a child, when you're raised with a parent
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: who not only had a business, but more importantly came
• 15:37
  Speaker 6: from nothing and created that, and then I got to
• 15:40
  Speaker 6: work in it on the business side, and then as
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: an adult, I'm working with Prince who's so adamant about ownership.
• 15:48
  Speaker 6: So we were working with an organization that he and
• 15:50
  Speaker 6: Van Jones found it called Yes Week Code, teaching African
• 15:53
  Speaker 6: American kids in the hood how to code and become
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: technology people. I'm not working with Facebook, I'm working with Google.
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: I'm working with the Obama White House Office of Science
• 16:01
  Speaker 6: and Technology. And then we start to put two and
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: two together.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: We said, wait a second.
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: We went to school with the people who created Google, Yahoo, PayPal, LinkedIn, pallunteer, YouTube.
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: We went to school with all these guys. They understood
• 16:22
  Speaker 6: right like that let's not breeze over there. That's crazy. Literally,
• 16:27
  Speaker 6: there's a cat that's in my class nineteen ninety four
• 16:30
  Speaker 6: who's a co founder of WhatsApp.
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: Now owned by Facebook, which was.
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: Sold for nineteen billion dollars. Yeah right, Jerry Yred Yahoo
• 16:40
  Speaker 6: was two years ahead of me in college in Stanford.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thirty year reunions.
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, oh, I'll see if we can get an invite
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: to that.
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: Honorary brother Stanford alumni is crazy.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: So all right.
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: So, so you build your relationships working with Prince and
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: Van Jones, and you're on the tech side. So at
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: what point do you to say, Okay, I want to
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: start my own venture capital firm with other people. I
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: think this is a good idea to do that.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: So basically, we were having a Black alumni reunion and
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: it was a summit. It was in twenty fifteen, and
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: we were in Atlanta, and I was on a panel.
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: The numbers had come out around how in Silicon Valley
• 17:22
  Speaker 6: less than one percent of the tech employees at these massive,
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: big tech companies is African American. The less than one
• 17:30
  Speaker 6: percent of venture capital going to African Americans. So I
• 17:34
  Speaker 6: was on a panel and there was a conversation about that,
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: and you know, you got some of the most successful
• 17:37
  Speaker 6: black people in the country all sitting in that room,
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: so there's a lot of anger. But then that turned to, well,
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: what do we do. We need to put pressure on Google,
• 17:44
  Speaker 6: we need to get them to hoid on black people.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: I was like, hey, wait a second.
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: If we went to school with the people who created
• 17:49
  Speaker 6: all this stuff, they had two very simple things. They
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: had an idea and they had a little bit of
• 17:57
  Speaker 6: Angel investment money two hundred three hundred five hundred thousand dollars.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: And then they were up and running.
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: We need to be focusing on doing that for our
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: black tech entrepreneurs.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: So I didn't even say, hey, we need a fund.
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: I just kind of put that out there, and literally
• 18:15
  Speaker 6: a group of us got together and by the next
• 18:16
  Speaker 6: day it was like the light bulbs are going off.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: And we said, hey, why.
• 18:20
  Speaker 6: Don't we pull money together and create a fund so
• 18:23
  Speaker 6: that we can start to do these investments in these
• 18:26
  Speaker 6: tech entrepreneurs. So that's literally, as literally how it started
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: Atlanta in twenty fifteen.
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: Wow. We spoke about Angel Investing with John Henry a
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: few months ago and he was talking about how it started.
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: Now he's a phenomenal, phenomenal young man.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: How many how many people are with you when you start?
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah, So when we initially started with Black Angel Tech
• 18:48
  Speaker 6: on us five of us and we literally, you know,
• 18:51
  Speaker 6: we did We raised a couple million dollars. We did
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: five deals in my fund now Blackstar Fund. I'm still
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: in three of those deals.
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: OK.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: So there's a.
• 19:00
  Speaker 6: Longevity there in terms of relationships with those founders. But yeah,
• 19:04
  Speaker 6: it really and it wasn't people who had investing experience.
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: That's one thing I think I love about your show
• 19:10
  Speaker 6: is that this is not for people who already know
• 19:12
  Speaker 6: all this stuff. It's for people who want to understand
• 19:14
  Speaker 6: how it works. If you look at someone like Arlen Hamilton,
• 19:17
  Speaker 6: Arln Hamilton does not come out of institutional investing. She
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: doesn't have an economics study. Arlen Hamilton the founder of
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: Backstage Capital. So she African American woman. She has invested
• 19:30
  Speaker 6: in over a hundred companies of diverse founders and women.
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: She raised four million dollars four or five years ago.
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: She was living out of her car. Well, she was
• 19:44
  Speaker 6: in the music industry and promotions, and she got the
• 19:46
  Speaker 6: Silicon Valley and again it's math. She's looking around, going
• 19:49
  Speaker 6: there's billions of dollars here where the black people. There's
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: a disconnect. We should do something about that. And she
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: got people to believe in her and her vision. Well,
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: what if we were getting this money, same thing with
• 20:00
  Speaker 6: we did with Black Angel Tech Fund into the folks.
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: I love what she says. We talked about underrepresented minorities.
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: She calls us underestimated. It's not underrepresented, right, it's underestimated.
• 20:13
  Speaker 6: So my point is that people like Arlen Hamilton, she
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: doesn't come out of investing Black Angel Tech Fund, None
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: of the founders came out of investing. But we wanted
• 20:22
  Speaker 6: to respond to a need and an opportunity. It wasn't
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: simply that the numbers were rescued so that black people
• 20:27
  Speaker 6: were not getting the cash. But sat wait a second.
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: From a business standpoint, that's an incredible opportunity. If Silicon
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: Valley is not paying attention to our genius and we
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: can get in early, we can support our genius, and
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: we can profit from our genius being successful.
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: I think you gave a great analogy. You said you're
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: like an A and R like in music just in tech. Right,
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: you go out, you look for the talent, you say
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: that's it.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Like, that's something that we're good at. Right.
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: We know good music when we hear it, and you
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: know good ideas when you see them, right, Can you
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: talk about that a little bit?
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah? You know.
• 21:00
  Speaker 6: It's like so when people say, you know, wikim, what's
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: your secret? As an investor said, I'm like an old
• 21:06
  Speaker 6: school an R person in the music industry. And for
• 21:10
  Speaker 6: the young heads that that means artists and repertoire. That's
• 21:12
  Speaker 6: when the cats who would go to the club, they
• 21:14
  Speaker 6: go to the church, they go to the yeah, and
• 21:18
  Speaker 6: they would hear the sound. Now, could a lot of
• 21:21
  Speaker 6: us sing really well? Absolutely? Could a lot of us play? Absolutely?
• 21:24
  Speaker 6: But there's something called what the it factor? So when
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: you think about back in the day with Motown, you
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: got Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, the Jackson Five, Stevie.
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: Wonder, Plantations.
• 21:37
  Speaker 6: Okay, they were all phenomenal singers, but they all had
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: the it factor. There's something special about certain people that
• 21:43
  Speaker 6: you just know that.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: They were born to be leaders.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: No, I say that all the time.
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: Is that we live in a world now like I
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: have a son and everybody gets award to participate and
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: everybody's like it's made just feel everybody's equal.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Now you're singing my song.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Now, everybody's not equal.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: There's some people that's that's made to excel others, and
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: that's okay because some people like Lebron James might not
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: be the best piano player, right, but as far as basketball,
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: he's he was built to excel. He still had to
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: put the work in. But you could have worked just
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: as hard as Lebron. You're not going to be Lebron.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: And it's the same thing with business people. It's like
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: even on the podcast, like we've had people on the
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: podcast before and be like, he's special or she's special.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Just has an it factor, right, and it's like you
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: don't you can't really put your finger.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: On it, but you know it.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: The people know it. They resonate toward and they just
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: they just have it.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: And the person sitting here knows it too.
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: Like when they walk in and we talk as soon
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: as like we have conversations after what they leave, it's
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: like he was he's special, she's special.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: You can feel it. That's the thing.
• 22:46
  Speaker 6: So then now let's look at it in the context
• 22:48
  Speaker 6: of wait a second, if what we're all saying is true,
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: how is it that you have less than one percent
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: of the venture capital going to African Americans. Right, That's
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: why I was saying that there's the opportunity. Greatest things
• 23:00
  Speaker 6: I ever learned from one of my mentors, he said,
• 23:02
  Speaker 6: a small mind focus is on the problem. Big mind
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: focuses on the solution. A genius mind sees the opportunity
• 23:08
  Speaker 6: that lies in the problem. Right, So that's how I functions. Wait, wait,
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: less than one percent. We know our genius, We know
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: our talent when we see it. So you're telling me,
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: I'll give you example. Mary spiel who's actually in town.
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: She's got a virtual reality company and she's doing virtual
• 23:24
  Speaker 6: reality content for the halftime show at the Super Bowl.
• 23:28
  Speaker 6: So she has a company called seek Vr. Okay, so
• 23:31
  Speaker 6: let me just give you the background. Here's an African
• 23:34
  Speaker 6: woman born New York, raised in Ghana. Dual degree, master's
• 23:37
  Speaker 6: degree in from Georgia Tech and Electrical Engineering and Computer science.
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: Seven year veteran of the United States Air Force, had
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: a satellite communications. Oh and by the way, she invented
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: the digital cinema system for Boeing, which bounces the movie
• 23:50
  Speaker 6: signal off of satellite.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: To the movie theater big time.
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: So you meet this woman who's got a VR company
• 23:58
  Speaker 6: and you find out that she got a deal with
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: Universe Soul Music and she beat out Oculus to get
• 24:02
  Speaker 6: that deal. Does that sound you know what I mean?
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: That's that's Dana Ross in the tech world exactly. Exactly
• 24:09
  Speaker 6: in the tech world. That's who you invested, not just
• 24:12
  Speaker 6: the money, the time, the relationships, the business coaching. So
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: we've got that level of talent and my belief, whether
• 24:19
  Speaker 6: it's it's John Henry and Harlem Capital, Plexo Capital Precursor,
• 24:24
  Speaker 6: Arlend with Backstage Capital, Blackstar Fund, that we are all
• 24:27
  Speaker 6: going to be turning the industry on its head and
• 24:30
  Speaker 6: in the next three to five years because we knew
• 24:32
  Speaker 6: where the talent was that nobody else was paying attention to,
• 24:35
  Speaker 6: and we invested early, and when as those companies grow
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: and have significant exits, everybody's going to come and look
• 24:41
  Speaker 6: at us as geniuses. Look, weren't geniuses. We paid attention
• 24:45
  Speaker 6: to the people you were not paying attention to. We
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: invested in the people you were overlooking.
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: The same dudes. You gave nothing. I made something.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: What I do?
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: That's it? So all right.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: In the next in the next segment, we're going to
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: go through the process as far as you know, he says,
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: the part process and like your day to day and
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: then some mindset opportunities that you that you coach people
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: on as well. So yeah, we're gonna go into that next.
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: All right, So you told us off camera that there's
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: really three phases of your VC, and what you do
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: with Black Star Fund is, you know, you raise money,
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: you find find founders. You raise money, you find founders,
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: and you help them be successful. So the interesting thing
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: for me is that you raise money before you find
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: the founder the founders of the people that you're giving
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: money to or you're investing money with. But you're raising
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: money before you actually have the people in play, and
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: then you're not only just giving them money, but you're
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: coaching them. Because I always look at it like it's
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: like talent, right, we can't where I like to talk
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: in sports and entertainment metaphors a lot because we understand
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: that we as a culture, but world culture, we understand that, right.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: So it's like me, I used to play sports. So
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: you see it's called the dominant rough Like you see
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: somebody like they might be phenomenal player, basketball player, but
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: they're not polished. They need work they need to coach,
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: they need a trainer, they need somebody. But they already
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: have potential, they have raw potential, but they're gonna get
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: demolage if they just go to the league. They have to,
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: they have to. They gotta practice, right, they gotta they
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: gotta refine. Same thing with business. Somebody could be the
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: most talented entrepreneur and be the most elegant speaker and
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: powerful networker and just have a presence, but that still
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: might not make them ready for the big league.
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: Credit as you're saying that, the first thing that came
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: out of mind were talking team was when Puff found it.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: It was like this gritty dude off the corner becomes
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: this guy who.
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: Knows where his besogy. He's an icon because of it.
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: He found a dirt, he shined it up, and now
• 26:40
  Speaker 5: he's an icon forever.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that happens. But there's a bunch of
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: people that just you know, everybody needs some level of coaching.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: Whether it's like nah said, large professor told him not
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: to pop his p's and the poof like you don't
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: think about that, but it's like little stuff like that.
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: It's like you you you actually have talent, but you
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: still need to be refined. So can you talk about
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: that as far as the process, your process being the
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: CEO of a VC fund and actually working with the entrepreneurs,
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: not just like one hundred miles away, just do your
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: own thing.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: There's the money, go ahead.
• 27:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah, So let me say this first of all, there's
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: a debate actually within our investment community where people even
• 27:19
  Speaker 6: within African American investors around spending a lot of time
• 27:21
  Speaker 6: with the entrepreneurs, and some people's philosophy is, but if
• 27:25
  Speaker 6: we decided to make a deal with you, we're giving
• 27:27
  Speaker 6: you the capital and you figure it out. We'll make
• 27:30
  Speaker 6: some phone calls for you, but we're not here to
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: hold your hand through the process. The way that VC
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: normally works, the philosophy is you invest in ten companies,
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: seven of them will fail, two of them will do okay,
• 27:43
  Speaker 6: and one of them will be a unicorn and make
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: everybody all the money. So what they do is they
• 27:48
  Speaker 6: wait to see who pulls ahead, and then the bottom
• 27:52
  Speaker 6: seven they kind of abandon most of the time.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Could we afford to do that with African American tech founders?
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not? Okay, absolutely that what are we talking about? Right?
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: That just makes no sense. We can't do that ten
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: percent to talk about ten companies exactly.
• 28:08
  Speaker 6: So when you talk about you know, we're looking for
• 28:09
  Speaker 6: the krem de la creme de la creme, the top
• 28:11
  Speaker 6: of the top of the top, and so a lot
• 28:13
  Speaker 6: of times you know even how we got connected.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: You had one of our companies on EUYL the Win
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Win company. It stands on.
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: Phenomenal guy, the true talented tech developer. True he was
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: a two time All American at Duke with a full
• 28:32
  Speaker 6: ride and made it to the NFL. The work ethic
• 28:37
  Speaker 6: of an individual like that, you put that person in
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: tech and business, you're dealing with it a force you
• 28:44
  Speaker 6: can't even imagine, you see what I mean? So that,
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: but everybody has reshards to your point, everybody has areas
• 28:50
  Speaker 6: that they need help with. Some of it might be
• 28:53
  Speaker 6: to be polished and refined in business. But what I
• 28:56
  Speaker 6: find that I think the most value that I bring,
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: and this is something I think that could help all
• 29:00
  Speaker 6: of your listeners, is that I say, the wider and
• 29:03
  Speaker 6: deeper your relationships are, the easier your life is. And
• 29:08
  Speaker 6: it translates to business, The wider and deeper your relationships
• 29:11
  Speaker 6: are the easier your businesses. So when I invest in
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: a company and I can leverage my relationships to help
• 29:18
  Speaker 6: them grow. It makes a huge difference we invest in.
• 29:21
  Speaker 6: I'll give you an example. We invest in a company.
• 29:23
  Speaker 6: One of my investors made one phone call. That company
• 29:28
  Speaker 6: was able to get their product into the top grocery
• 29:31
  Speaker 6: store in northern California.
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: Just from the resources.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: That's you Okay, you see what I mean.
• 29:36
  Speaker 6: It wasn't heavy lifting, but because I had that relationship
• 29:40
  Speaker 6: and I could leverage that relationship for my founder that
• 29:43
  Speaker 6: I invested in, she was able to have a breakthrough in.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: The California market. You see what I mean.
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: So it's not just the coaching, like we're helping you
• 29:50
  Speaker 6: with mindset and we'll get into some of that hopefully too,
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: but it's how can I act as almost your VP
• 29:58
  Speaker 6: of business development? How can I get you in rooms
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: and how can I connect you with people to help
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: you to grow your business? And then sometimes you know,
• 30:06
  Speaker 6: we do what I call CEO coaching. It's the behind
• 30:09
  Speaker 6: closed door. Its tough conversations where we got to look
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: in the mirror, We got to do an assessment. Where
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: are your blocks, how are you getting in your own way?
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: What story are you telling yourself? That's not serving you
• 30:20
  Speaker 6: or your company. You see what I mean?
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: So what is some CEO coaching that you do or
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: that you know, because, like I said, a lot of
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: times people you start a business, there's no roadmap to
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: be successful, and coaching is extremely important, right, Like even
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: Lebron reportedly spends a million dollars on his body where
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: he has like massage therapists and trainers and things of
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: that nature. And it's like business, this is important too,
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: business podcast is that top level business people spend money
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: on coaches. That's right, because they want to improve, whether
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: it's a variety of different things that they can improve
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: and become more efficient, things of that nature. And so
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: as far as like CEO coaching, what is that? What
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: does that look like from your standpoint?
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: That's a great, great question. So there's not for me,
• 31:05
  Speaker 6: there's not a cookie cutter formula. It's like you got
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: to assess the person in front of you. Where are
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: their strengths, where are their weaknesses? And you hear me
• 31:13
  Speaker 6: use this word, where are their blocks? And a block
• 31:17
  Speaker 6: is a mental idea that you have in your head
• 31:19
  Speaker 6: that's preventing you from moving forward, and oftentimes it's subconscious.
• 31:24
  Speaker 6: So how do you find out where those blocks are.
• 31:26
  Speaker 6: It's based on output. I'm looking at what the entrepreneur
• 31:30
  Speaker 6: is doing, and I'm looking at the output, and in
• 31:32
  Speaker 6: certain areas I'm not seeing good results.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: And then I'm asking them, what is it that you want?
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: I want this?
• 31:38
  Speaker 6: It's okay, Well, I'm looking at six months of activity.
• 31:41
  Speaker 6: I'm not seeing a lot of the thing that you
• 31:42
  Speaker 6: say that you want. So we have to go into
• 31:45
  Speaker 6: why is that now? Some of it is because they
• 31:46
  Speaker 6: haven't designed a plan to be able to get there well,
• 31:49
  Speaker 6: but a lot of times there's a block, and it's
• 31:51
  Speaker 6: almost like be honestly, it's almost like being a psychologist
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: where you got to go in and start to figure
• 31:55
  Speaker 6: out what is preventing you from doing what you need
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: to do, and then you forty seven. So I've seen
• 32:02
  Speaker 6: a lot. I've had some great successes. I've had some
• 32:04
  Speaker 6: painful failures.
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: That's exactly where I was going because I'm thinking, like,
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: this sounds very well organized, very well planned. In order
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: to coach, sometimes you had to have made some mistakes
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: that you know that play doesn't work, that's the thing.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: So what are some of the mistakes that you've made
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: along the way. So I'll give an example. I see
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: this a lot.
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: Actually, when you're building a team as a leader, there's
• 32:24
  Speaker 6: a mistake that people make where they build a team
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: based on people who look up to them and who
• 32:31
  Speaker 6: want to follow them. And part of it is an
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: ego thing. Right, So I'm the CEO and founder. You're
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: working for me. Maybe you haven't had this level of
• 32:39
  Speaker 6: success that I've had, and you just want to be down.
• 32:42
  Speaker 6: I'm bringing you on same thing. So what these guys
• 32:45
  Speaker 6: do a lot of times they'll build a team of
• 32:46
  Speaker 6: people who are kind of not at their level and
• 32:50
  Speaker 6: look up to them and kind of idolize them. Huge mistake.
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: I made that mistake. When you're in business, you want
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: to build a team. And I tell peoples all the time,
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: when you look on the table your management team, you
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: should be in awe of the people on your team.
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: You should literally be in awe of them. Get this,
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: howe how is it possible that you're sitting at the
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: table actually building this company. See, that's a mindset shift,
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: and again sometimes it's ego. Sometimes people don't know better.
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: The problem with the first way is that that team
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: is always looking for you to make all the decisions
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: and they and they're not really solving problems. Okay, so
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: you need people who are better than you to do
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: the things that you need to do to build your business.
• 33:31
  Speaker 6: Steve Jobs was a genius at that and you probably
• 33:33
  Speaker 6: have seen that meme. He said, you know, we hire
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: people who are smarter than us to tell us what
• 33:36
  Speaker 6: to do, right, not the other way around.
• 33:39
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: So that's that's a problem that I see. If you
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: want to get in the nitty gritty in terms of
• 33:43
  Speaker 6: cash flow management. One of the folks, one of the
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: one of the things I think are our folks have
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: a challenge with is that when money comes in, they'll
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: operate the business kind of how they operate it on
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: their life, okay, without having a budget, without having strict
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: controls of that money.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: And so what I do with the entrepreneur is, look,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: we have to have the budget set with the X amount.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: I go over that with them.
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: On some of the companies, I'm on the board, so
• 34:08
  Speaker 6: it's a little easier because I can do board approvals
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: of the budget. But we make sure that the cash
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: is accounted for every week. If something comes up and
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: we need to make a shift, we need to have
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: a board decision to make a shift in the expenditures.
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: But we've got spreadsheets to see where everything is. I've
• 34:25
  Speaker 6: seen so many companies that are raised five hundred thousand
• 34:27
  Speaker 6: dollars a million dollars. Ten months later, money's gone and
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: the company is gone. Was it because their burn rate
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: was so high? No, because they didn't have good financial
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: systems in place, or they were saying, well, we don't
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: need a CFO, we can't afford a CFO.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Well, you don't need to hire a CFO.
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: You need to have a fractional CFO, somebody that you
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: can hire ten hours a month that will help to
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: make sure all the financial.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Things are in place.
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: A fractional CFO.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is a new thing to be helpful
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: your listener. Yes, I've heard of it.
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: We call it fractional c suite. So we're starting off.
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: We can't hire necessarily a chief marketing officer CMO, a
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: chief financial officer CFO.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: We don't have to.
• 35:06
  Speaker 6: There's now people who have positioned themselves to be fractional
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: C level managers. I'll give you ten hours a month
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: to be your chief marketing officer, right because you're just
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: getting started, and so that's a great bit earners.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: What's up.
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: You ever walk into a small business and everything just
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• 38:09
  Speaker 6: Just for people to be in because they can work
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: for five sixty seven companies and get paid for those
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: companies doing fractional work in the week.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: It's great.
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: It's great, right, and it's great for the company because
• 38:18
  Speaker 6: you're getting high level professional services but you're not paying
• 38:21
  Speaker 6: out the nose to be able to get that.
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like a consultant or MVP most viable product.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: When we say a lot on the podcast, it's like
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: you have to work with the resources that's available to you.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: So you might not have one hundred and fifty thousand
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: dollars to pay somebody full time, but you might have
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: twenty thousand that you can break. And like you said,
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: it's kind of a win win because it's like you're
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: still getting some level of help and that person might
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: get twenty thousand from ten different people. Now that's two
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: hundred thousand as opposed to just the one fifty that
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: they were going to get. But they got to focus
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: all of their time just on one company.
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: That's right, absolutely. And there's one other thing I want
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: to say quickly about some of the coaching. It's life style.
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: One of our companies you've invested in a great friend
• 39:02
  Speaker 6: of mine, Don Dixon, and she has a company called
• 39:05
  Speaker 6: Popcom and it's an incredible you know, AI interactive vending
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: machine software system that she's created. And you know, she
• 39:14
  Speaker 6: always talks about, especially to younger entrepreneurs in the early twenties,
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: this idea that you're grinding, you know, ninety one hundred
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: hours a week and that somehow we romanticize that that's
• 39:24
  Speaker 6: how you're supposed to be successful. That is a way
• 39:27
  Speaker 6: to have an imbalanced life, and that is a way
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: to burn out. And so I really work with my
• 39:34
  Speaker 6: founders in terms of their life balance. Me personally, I
• 39:37
  Speaker 6: don't work on Sundays. I will not work on Sundays.
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: I only started doing that in twenty nineteen, you see
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: what I mean. So I don't want to see my
• 39:46
  Speaker 6: founders like as an investor, I don't want to hear
• 39:48
  Speaker 6: oh yeah, kwami.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Man. We grind it out.
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: We put a one hundred hour week. I had three
• 39:51
  Speaker 6: nights with no sleep.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: I don't want to hear that. I want to know.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Like Mike Brown, I'll just throw his stuff out.
• 39:57
  Speaker 6: I'll talk. I'll call Mike, I say hey, can we
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: do a meeting. It's like can my son in taekwondo?
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: I don't say, well, can you step outside? Because I've
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: taken my son when he was five to taekwondo? Right,
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: And it's so important that as a founder, as an
• 40:12
  Speaker 6: investor with the founder, I'm expecting you to work hard.
• 40:15
  Speaker 6: I'm not expecting you to burn yourself out. I'm not
• 40:18
  Speaker 6: expecting you to have your life out of balance because
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: I care about you as a human being first and foremost.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: But second, it's painfully inefficient. It's not sustainable. It's not sustainable.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: I need you to be here for the long haul,
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: and I need you to bring.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: To the best of your abilities, the best of you,
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: and then also to play devil's advocate. I think there's
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: different systems for different people because, like we talked about sports,
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: there's the Belichick way right, Patriots way, but it's really
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: Belichick's way and he's a much different coach than Phil Jackson.
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: He's a much different coach than Andy Reid. Right with Belichick,
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: it's no alternative. He's about t trying to get rid
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: of Tom Brady. You don't care.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: This is my way.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: And people say they hate playing for the everybody that's
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: played for the Patriots city that's not on the Patriots anymore.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: So they hated it, but they win. They win, right,
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: It's like sometimes the win and it's it's hard for
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: people to fully understand that too, because it's like it's
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: it's it's kind of disy. I think businesses like sports
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: where it's like sometimes you go to extra mind and
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: every everybody, everybody's not balanced.
• 41:27
  Speaker 6: So let me let me expound on that, because, believe
• 41:29
  Speaker 6: it or not, I agree with you one hundred percent,
• 41:32
  Speaker 6: and I'm glad you said that because I need to
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: qualify what I said because it goes to your point
• 41:37
  Speaker 6: about it. It's not sustainable. I want to see it
• 41:40
  Speaker 6: being seasons. Okay, there's a season to go in the
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: overdrive and then there's a season to pull back, and
• 41:46
  Speaker 6: the Bible says it's time to place for everything. So
• 41:48
  Speaker 6: what I'm not saying as a startup founder, you should
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: comfortably just do for hours a week, clock out at
• 41:54
  Speaker 6: five o'clock on Friday. I don't think about working all weekend.
• 41:57
  Speaker 6: I've got yoga tonight. No, no, right, But this idea
• 42:02
  Speaker 6: that like I'm not doing, I'm not a good founder
• 42:04
  Speaker 6: of a startup if I'm not working ninety hours a week,
• 42:07
  Speaker 6: never take a break, always grind and always reading. That mindset. See,
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: that's different than the athlete that is doing waking up
• 42:15
  Speaker 6: at four in the morning every day. It's even that
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: athlete still takes their family on vacation, you see what
• 42:21
  Speaker 6: I mean? Even that athlete reads books instead of playing. Right.
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: So there's grind season, there's recovery season, there's we're going
• 42:29
  Speaker 6: to pull out all the stops, and then this we're
• 42:32
  Speaker 6: gonna reflect. Steve Jobs one of the most innovative entrepreneurs
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: on the planet earth, Bill Gates, the minor standing I
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: just start documenting on him.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: He still does it.
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: They read for over an hour a day. Now, how
• 42:48
  Speaker 6: in the world would you be Bill Gates with networth
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: of thirty plus billion dollars, with all the global responsibilities
• 42:54
  Speaker 6: he has, and he reads an hour day. Steve Jobs
• 42:58
  Speaker 6: would walk for an hour a day, not take phone calls.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Now you have steve jobs, rest and soul. Why do
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: you do that? He said?
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: Because that's where I can think, and that's where I
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: come up with ideas.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: You have to allocate this time. Oh, you definitely will
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: burn out. That's like Shoy's coming from the Bisweld educational
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: I see it all the time. Like I have teachers
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: that are thirty and forty and they're like, I can't
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: do this anymore.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm like, well, what are you gonna do? I
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: I'm like, well, then you're gonna be doing this right.
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: Like it's like most teachers think that they're gonna work
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: till the retirement age fifty five fifty sevens for something,
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: and they're like, all right, it's great, But I'm like,
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: you're thirty now, you're twenty seven years away.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: What are you gonna do if you burnt out now?
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: And it's like they haven't allocated the time or the
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: resources to look at anything else.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: That's so powerful.
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So as far as raising money, right, what's the
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: process as far as that is concerned for you personally?
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: Like you guys, now, do you tap into your network
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: that you've built up over the years. There's alumni association,
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: it's just random people that you come in contact with.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: Do you have email marketing?
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: How do you we calling this stand for the lum
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: How do you raise money for you for these businesses
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: that you're giving money to.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's two sides of it.
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: Let's talk about on the fund side and then also
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: talk about how I help some of the companies to
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: raise money themselves right on the fun side. It goes
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: back to what I said, the wider and deeper the
• 44:22
  Speaker 6: relationships you have our the easier your life is easier
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: your businesses. And remember I said success by association. So
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: let's say I've got a good relationship with somebody's business guy.
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: It knows me, trusts me, likes me, admires my work.
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: Talk to him, he says, calling out, man, I.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Want to invest.
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: I don't just say hey, thank you so much for that.
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: I really appreciate it, and then try to find other people.
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: Then we sit down, who else in your network do
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: you think would be interested in this?
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: So, now when we go and meet with that person,
• 44:51
  Speaker 6: these are people he's done deals with, These are people
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: she's done deals with. So they know them, they like them,
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: they trust them, and a lot of times they've made
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: money together. So now it's not just what, hey, here's
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: this guy you don't know.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: Do you want to do this?
• 45:03
  Speaker 6: It's hey, man, I just get in this deal. You
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: gotta see this, you gotta meet this guy. I'm in
• 45:08
  Speaker 6: and I want to bring you in with me. So
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: so much of the deal is done before the meeting
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: simply because again it's success by association. So that's really
• 45:18
  Speaker 6: my strategy on the fundraise. And the cool thing about
• 45:20
  Speaker 6: that too, is that you meet extraordinary people doing amazing things.
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: Like I'm in town to help my two companies. Those
• 45:27
  Speaker 6: events were Thursday and tomorrow. I planned my trip to
• 45:32
  Speaker 6: leave on Tuesday. Why because I knew I was going
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: to be meeting people, and I got some business partners
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: down here that I said, I'm coming for a week.
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: Ta Kama will get you some meetings so we can
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: help you to raise some money down here.
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: You see what I mean, And you never know what
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: can happen, like I I was just saying earlier, like
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: somebody who was asked me, like you lest, I'm not
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: leaving leave Miami until I'm supposed to leave because already
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: I know it's in New York.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: I'm in New York all year.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: I might just randomly walk outside and meet a random
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: person that could change my life, like you know what
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: I mean. And I think people don't fully understand that either.
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: It's like it's important to travel and it's important and
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: like we just met you two days ago. Who knows
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: where this relationship can go. But a lot of times
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: we just so can find average person only leaves for
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: like two weeks a year, and their day to day
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: is exactly the same. And that's why it said, like
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: even take a different route to work, because it's like
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: you kind of just get programmed to wake up, walk
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: your dog, take your kid to school, pick a kid
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: up from school. And then like you're you're only interacting
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: with ten people every day for your whole entire year.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: How are you going to change your life? Of course,
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: your life is going to be the same.
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: You're only talking to ten people, That's right, that's the
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: allocation part. It was like most people who work in
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: corporate worlds, they'll tell you you got two weeks of
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: vacation for the year, so choose it wisely. You know
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: what I'm saying. So it's like it's tough because it's
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: like we're trying to figure out, this is how much
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: time we have, and oh, I got to put it
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: with my friends and my family because this is the
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: only time I have. It's like if you get sick,
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: good luck, you know what I mean.
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: It's it's true, but I think that this goes back
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: to the shifting mindset. Right, if we're working a job
• 47:05
  Speaker 6: and we only have two weeks allocated for vacation, that's
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: kind of what the rules are. But the reality is
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: we also got fifty two weekends, right, And if you'd
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: make a decision every other month, I'm going somewhere. Does
• 47:15
  Speaker 6: that mean that you got to spend two grand to
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: go out of the country or go to Mexico? Not necessarily,
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: But if you live in New York, you got a
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: friend in DC, you take that train down to DC
• 47:24
  Speaker 6: and you stay with them, and it's exactly what you're saying.
• 47:27
  Speaker 6: You're in you're at a different party, you're at someone
• 47:30
  Speaker 6: else's house for dinner, and it's natural things.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: So what is it that you do right?
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: And then having a consent where you go to school,
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: and then once you start making those common links, hey,
• 47:38
  Speaker 6: do you know so and so?
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: No, Man, I got to.
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: Introduce you to a friend of mine, right, that's we
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: got to be in that mindset totally. How do you
• 47:43
  Speaker 6: put yourself in places and spaces where you're meeting new people,
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: having new conversations and then having new realities for you.
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: You know what's crazy too, is like we're so programmed,
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: and it's like the people start looking at you crazy.
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: Like when you start traveling a lot, you start doing things,
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: they start looking at you crazy, like why are you
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: traveling so much?
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: You know you need to travel slow down a little bit?
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: Why not?
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Like there was literally people.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: Will and then it's like even for you guys, not
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: for me, but it's even relationships with people, like you know,
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: you never know. It's like why are you traveling again?
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: Or you're traveling again? Or and people it's like, yeah,
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: why not travel?
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, if I can, I'll get like, hey, you
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: gotta slow down. You need to slow down, man, you're
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: moving around too much. And I'm like, na, man, we're
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: trying to change the world here, like what I'm doing
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: in education, like I don't go to work tomorrow. In school,
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: somebody eventually will be the new teacher there, but like
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: nobody's doing, we're doing, so I gotta advocate. I gotta
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: allocate time for this because this is super important.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: You know, it's so it's so true, man.
• 48:42
  Speaker 6: But that goes back to what we talked about success
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: by association, right, is that there's a painful reality.
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: And I learned this.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: I'll be honest with you, man. I remember being in Baltimore.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: It was a tough time in my life and I
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: was in I was in.
• 48:57
  Speaker 6: A motel and I had audio recording of one of
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: Tony Robbins's programs and he said, write down.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: The most.
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: Write down how you would describe success in business and
• 49:19
  Speaker 6: health in relationships, and basically through one to five of
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: where you are, and then you do the average of that.
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: I was like at one point two of everything.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 49:31
  Speaker 6: And one of the things that he was talking about,
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: and this isn't just you know, we say, like we
• 49:36
  Speaker 6: said earlier, that your net worth is the average of
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: five people that you spend most time with. But the
• 49:40
  Speaker 6: deeper level of that concept is your net consciousness is
• 49:46
  Speaker 6: the average of the five people you spend the most
• 49:48
  Speaker 6: time with.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: Okay, so what that means is.
• 49:52
  Speaker 6: One of my favorite rappers of Chuck D Public Enemy
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: right from Public Enemy, and Chuck D said, if I
• 49:57
  Speaker 6: can't change the people around me, I changed people around me.
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: I'm in a situation where I can't change the people
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: around me. I change the people around me. And when
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: you hear things, no diside of your friends and people
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: that love you. But when you hear things like you
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: need to slow down, you're traveling too much, and you're
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: not hearing the choruses telling you, Man, I'm so proud
• 50:18
  Speaker 6: of you.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Man, do it.
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 50:20
  Speaker 6: Every time I see a picture of you somewhere else,
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: I get excited for you. What's the next thing you're doing.
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: You're doing great now, but what's the next level you're
• 50:27
  Speaker 6: trying to go to. If you don't have that courus
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: around you, it's time to shift the team. It's time
• 50:33
  Speaker 6: to shift the team. I learned this early in my career.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: Man. Remember one of my mentors, SA Kwami.
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: The team that gets you from A to B, it's
• 50:40
  Speaker 6: not the same team that's gonna get you from B
• 50:41
  Speaker 6: two C or C D or D two E. And
• 50:43
  Speaker 6: you as a leader, you have to be prepared. Doesn't
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: mean there's not some people gonna go all the way
• 50:47
  Speaker 6: with you. But for the most part, the whole team's
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: not coming.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Everybody might not gonna make it.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: That everybody's not gonna make it. It's not gonna happen.
• 50:55
  Speaker 9: It's okay, right, we're only laughing because we say that
• 51:03
  Speaker 9: all the time. Everybody's not come make so clearly, man,
• 51:13
  Speaker 9: I say, I hit a nerve that is that is
• 51:16
  Speaker 9: a that's a mantra that we.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: Are kind of kind of live back. You gotta get
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: some of the the teacher. Everybody ain't coming.
• 51:26
  Speaker 7: It'll be only it'll be only that's gonna be the shirt.
• 51:29
  Speaker 7: It'll be only be only bus stops here, right, you're
• 51:33
  Speaker 7: getting off. You get no transfers, no transfers.
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: So from your perspective, as far as mindset, is mindset
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: more more important than the information that people receive. But
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: does it go hand in hand to make the information
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: useful for people.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to quantify.
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: But just to make the point, I mean, in my
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: life experience, I always say in life, love and business,
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: I would say ninety is mindset and ten percent is
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: the info. Because if you don't have the right mindset,
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: then you don't know how to digest the info.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: And we were kids.
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: Memember of parents used to said, man, it's in one air.
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: I tell you the same thing over and over. It's
• 52:13
  Speaker 6: in one ear and out the other. Okay, you're getting
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: the info, you're not retaining it, you're not digesting it,
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: you're not processing it, and most importantly, you're not using
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: it for the transformation. So the mindset, you know great.
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: Wayne Dyer said, when you change the way you see things,
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: the things that you see change. That had a profound
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: impact on my life. So when you change whey you
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: see things, the things that you see change.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: That is mindset.
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: If I can think about this in a different way,
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: then I can have a different result. There's another reason
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: why you've got to have different people around you, because
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: if you fall in the trap of commiserating, oh man,
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: things are really tough right now, and you get a
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: bunch of people that are supporting that song, you go
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: deeper down that hole. You have some people say, man,
• 52:57
  Speaker 6: stop complaining. Okay, that is that really helpful? You really
• 53:00
  Speaker 6: need There's people who said, let me help you to
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: see this thing differently. What you think is the problem
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: could be an incredible opportunity. And because your mindset changes,
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: then you look at the thing differently, You deal with
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: the thing differently, and then you get different results.
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember to end it on that.
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: No, I was years ago. I was working at this
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: play this company, and this guy he was like one
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: of the top people, big time producer, and he was
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: in the bathroom and another person came in the bathroom
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: and started complaining about like the manager and was saying like, hey,
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean. Like he's like, don't stop.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: I can't process any negative information. Can't process it.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: He stopped him, like aptitudes like Nope, not doing that.
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: It's not it's not gonna be beneficial and it's only
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: going to be negative and it's gonna lower my frequency
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: and I can't.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: I can't do it.
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: And when it was so profound because he didn't give
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: him apology here and he just and for him to
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: be at that level and just let me know, like,
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: you know, everything that you put in your brain is important,
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: and it's a lot of times we put so much
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: negativity in our brain without even fully understanding what we're doing,
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: and then we're wondering while we're not getting the positive results.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: That's that's right, that's right. Yeah.
• 54:14
  Speaker 6: I think I did a social media post recently, and
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: I was saying, you know, in order to kind of
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: have a new reality, you have to have a new
• 54:19
  Speaker 6: song in your head. Right, what's the story you're telling yourself.
• 54:23
  Speaker 6: What's the song that you're singing. I've literally lost friendships
• 54:26
  Speaker 6: and relationships saying similar things where people I was hearing
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: a lot of gossip. I can't hear that right now. Nope,
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: a matter of fact, I can't ever hear it.
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: No, that's powerful.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: So all right, in the last segment, we're gonna close
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: it out. We're gonna go to Mother Africa home. Yeah,
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: the return for sure, awesome. All right, So in the
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: last segment, we're gonna close it out and we're gonna
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: go into national And this is something that I really
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: I really like enjoying having these conversations because I always said,
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: like the vision of we can never limit ourselves, we
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: can never limit ourselves as far as like geographically or
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: culturally or anything like the world is our oyster. I
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: think it's important for people to understand that, and that's
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: something that we really proud ourselves on. As far as
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: your leisure, it's not just in America. We're in you know,
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: we're blessed me and some of the top charts all
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: over the world act and one continent specifically that we
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: have reached the top charts in a lot of countries,
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: it's Africa. So shout out to everybody in Africa, all countries,
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: all over all countries in Africa. We definitely have to
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: come to Africa soon.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: I'd love to be your host.
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, looking forward to that. A lot of people have
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: been hitting us up asking to come to Africa. And
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: as I said, you're African American, you have roots in Ghana,
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: That's where your family is from, and I know you
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: go back there pretty regularly, right.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: I do. Yeah, I'm there usually two or three times
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: a year. It was it was a big event this
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: this December.
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: It was the year return in Africa and Ghana specifically,
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: and you were holding a text onment you were speaking there.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: Right, I was, Yeah.
• 55:58
  Speaker 6: I'm the US ambassador for the on A Tech Summit.
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: The co founders Einstein and Christine and Tim have created
• 56:04
  Speaker 6: this incredible vision of tech summits all over the continent.
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: And this was the second annual Ghana Tech Summit that
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: happened just last month.
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: So can we talk about all right, can we talk
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: about that as far as what's going on in Africa
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: right now. And I think it's important to have these
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: conversations because it's like for us being an African American
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: and then from the continent people that's of African descent.
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: On the continent, it's only a body of water that
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: separates us, but a lot of times it seems like
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: it's much further, but it's really not. We're not that separated.
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: So it's important I want to bridge this gap for
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: people in America and for people in Africa. What's going
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: on in Ghana specifically as far as the tech boom
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: that's happening there and the entrepreneur and what did you
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: see when you go out there and you know, being
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: out there giving a ted talk and things of that nature.
• 56:52
  Speaker 6: Sure, so I'm so excited to have a chance to
• 56:54
  Speaker 6: share and really making an open invitation. But piggyback and
• 56:59
  Speaker 6: O's what you said is that twenty nineteen was the
• 57:01
  Speaker 6: year of Return. And it was the President of Ghana
• 57:04
  Speaker 6: who said, look, this is it's the four hundred year
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: mark of the first African Africans who were brought to
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: the United States or to North America as slaves. And
• 57:15
  Speaker 6: so we're going to put our flag in the ground
• 57:17
  Speaker 6: and say hey, we're marking this and we want you
• 57:19
  Speaker 6: to come home.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: That's what he said.
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: Come make cultural connection, Come learn how to invest, come
• 57:25
  Speaker 6: to reconnect with the motherland.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: Post that.
• 57:29
  Speaker 6: Now that we're going in twenty twenty, it's now called
• 57:31
  Speaker 6: the Year of the Birthright, and we're taking it even
• 57:34
  Speaker 6: further and saying the Decade of the Birthright. That means
• 57:37
  Speaker 6: that you, as descendants of Mother Africa, your birthright is
• 57:41
  Speaker 6: there waiting for you, so you got to come back
• 57:43
  Speaker 6: and connect with it and build. What's happening in Ghana.
• 57:47
  Speaker 6: First of all, it's the fastest growing economy on the
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: continent of Africa. Okay, so on any given year it's
• 57:54
  Speaker 6: doing six to eight percent growth. Billions of dollars are
• 57:59
  Speaker 6: coming from all over the world building infrastructure, building gorgeous
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: buildings and hotels, our family businesses, building affordable housing units
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: and neighborhoods.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: You know, there's so much in any sector.
• 58:13
  Speaker 6: It could be gold, it could be technology, it could
• 58:15
  Speaker 6: be textiles, it could be five G anything. It's all
• 58:21
  Speaker 6: in the early stages for people to get in and
• 58:23
  Speaker 6: to build. And it's a beautiful country. And now granted
• 58:27
  Speaker 6: I'm biased because my family is from there, But what
• 58:29
  Speaker 6: I found is a year of return because we had
• 58:31
  Speaker 6: thousands of African Americans coming that the mines were blown.
• 58:38
  Speaker 6: But more importantly, what I knew was going to happen,
• 58:42
  Speaker 6: and I watched it happen. There's a feeling when you
• 58:45
  Speaker 6: get your feedback on that soil that you didn't know
• 58:49
  Speaker 6: that you had the capacity to feel.
• 58:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean just thinking visually, like every time,
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: especially when we were growing up, there was just one
• 58:56
  Speaker 5: image of what people thought Africa was.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: It was like donated dollar to a child, right, or
• 59:02
  Speaker 5: it was like you were in a safari And like
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: when we saw the images coming back, especially like on
• 59:06
  Speaker 5: social media, and I think that's the beauty of it,
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: it was just like, wait, why are we not there?
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: And I'm sure that when people got there, like you
• 59:14
  Speaker 5: saw that firsthand, right.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: I didn't. But it was literal, man.
• 59:17
  Speaker 6: I mean there was people I had so many friends
• 59:20
  Speaker 6: that literally canceled their return flights to stay another week
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: or indefinitely. I watched people who have full time jobs
• 59:31
  Speaker 6: writing emails and proposals to their bosses with ideas of
• 59:36
  Speaker 6: how they could be working in Africa for three months.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: Out of the year.
• 59:41
  Speaker 6: I watched it happen, So in the feeling, I was
• 59:44
  Speaker 6: there with my buddy too, Shaka Sangor, incredible author, New
• 59:49
  Speaker 6: York Times bestseller One Man Show All over the World,
• 59:51
  Speaker 6: amazing friend of mine, and we did a film with him.
• 59:56
  Speaker 6: So he came back to for the first time and
• 59:58
  Speaker 6: we shot a docu film of him being over there,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 6: and he said something really deep he said when he said,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 6: what the feeling I thought I was going to have
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 6: when I got back is that I'm home.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: He to to be honest with you, I didn't actually
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: feel that. He said.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 6: What I felt was that I belonged here, And I
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 6: think that is the thing for African Americans when they go.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 6: It's the sense that you belong there. You don't have
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 6: to move, but that feeling. The reality is most Black
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: Americans have never felt that their whole life. Very true,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 6: so that I think that's the massive opportunities in every sector.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: I'm obviously on the tech space, but whatever you're into,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 6: you will find a place, you will find the feeling
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 6: of belonging, and you're going to want to be doing
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 6: business and building this next civilization in Africa.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: So what is the opportunities as far as for foreigners,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: Because I've heard Akon say, like, anybody that's doing business
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: in America, you got to come to Africa and do business,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: and I guarantee like your business like boom like, you'll
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: be way more successful doing anything, whether it's doing insurance,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: whether it's real estate, whether it's writing, whatever, doing in Africa.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: He said that before.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: So what are the opportunities and how welcoming is it
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: for foreigners, specifically Americans that may be in business to
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: come to Africa because obviously you don't know that the
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: dynamics of it. You got to like partner up and
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: meet people out there.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so two parts of that I always tell people.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 6: There's there's the what, the why and the how, So
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 6: the what is other opportunities The answer is absolutely yes,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 6: But then we get into the why. It is easy
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 6: I want to reconnect with Africa and be part of
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 6: creating the change that we want to see. The how
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 6: is about who do you know? Who do you know
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 6: over there that can help you to be able to
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 6: navigate through It's difficult to do business in Ghana and
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 6: quite frankly on the continent when you don't know people
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 6: because you don't have access and you don't know how
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: to navigate through there.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: But it's it's the same here. I mean, if I
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: you know, I've never been in New York and I'm trying.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 6: To do business and or stop, I know a whole
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 6: lot of people well connected business, finance, city Hall. I'm
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 6: gonna get some subst out quickly.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: So it's really important to connect with people.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 6: And Joe, when you mentioned about seeing the social media,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 6: if you have friends that you saw over there with
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 6: social media, I guarantee you they were making relationships and
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: friendships over there, you need to get in touch with
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 6: them and say, hey, I'm interested in doing business.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: Who do you know over there? Now?
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 6: You know, I'll do a little bit of promotion because
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: I want people to be connected to me as well.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 6: But then we can help to get you connected to
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 6: folks that can help you based on the things that
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: you're interested in.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, your company does that?
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: So I work with folks. I've got partners over there. Ok.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so we you know, we've got a consulting company too,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: so we help people that are interested in doing business
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 6: in Africa, specifically in Ghana.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: You bridged that gain absolutely what's the name of the company.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so my partner with there is black Band. Black
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 6: Band Terry Opong, He's the CEO and founder of black Band.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: What are some industries that they definitely need like right away?
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: That's the opportunities for entrepreneurs.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: Oh, well, you'll be happy. I think the real estate
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 6: and obviously our family is in the real estate business.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 6: But the real estate opportunities in Ghana are extraordinary. It's
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 6: just extraordinary. You got to need right now for a
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 6: million people for affordable housing.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: That's a Cilian Presidentirey.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, development, real estate development.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 6: Real estate development is huge. But I mean, honest with you,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 6: the thing is so wide that it's what are you
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 6: what are you passionate about? People interested in fashion, the
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 6: textile industry, fashion explosive. The other area we need to
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 6: really start thinking about is the cocoa industry. Coco Ghana
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 6: producers three percent of the global supply excuse me, seventy
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 6: percent of the global supply of coco, but we're only
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 6: participating in three percent of the supply chain benefit of
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 6: that seventy seventy percent, and between Ghana and Ivory Coast,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 6: it's ninety percent of the entire planet's coco comes from
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 6: those two places, but we're participating in a minuscule part
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 6: of the profit because we're not processing.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: It there correctly.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: We're just we're just growing the coco, sending it to
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: out there's no infrastructure to properly.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: It's like the diamonds in South Africa, and then they
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: send it to Israel to actually get cut and all
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: of that.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: That's that's exactly like when we spoke about spoke about
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: Elco Dangote when he was when he changed his country's
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: export to import policy, right, like they were putting out
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: so much oil. He built the infrastructures so now they're
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: able to export it to countries and make money. It
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: completely changes the income for the entire country.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Nigeria is one of the they have one of
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: the largest oil reserves in the world, but they don't
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: produce a lot of oil. Now they're starting to change that,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: but because the refineries just wasn't enough to cove and
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: they couldn't actually produce it well, efficiently, well and efficiently.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. So yeah, so look, whether it's oil, whether.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 6: It's solar, agriculture, real estate tech, which is my world,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 6: our developers over there are coders over there. There's so
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 6: many incredible opportunities. So when you think about the United States,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 6: the people really made money back in the day build
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 6: the railroads and everything else. Those families and the oil families.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 6: We can be those families in Ghana right now in
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 6: twenty twenty.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: And media opportunities are there, Media opportunities and god, oh.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, media infrastructures.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 6: And I think that's one of the things that trips
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 6: people out, man, when they get the gun and they
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 6: flip on the television and everything. It's like everything here,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 6: your sports center, your news, But it's us. It's hosting,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 6: that's producing, that's running those stations and those networks.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: I think it's exciting for content creators.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: No, I think creators and I see you firsthand as
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: far as we're earn your leisures because like I see,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: it's a need for what we do in different parts
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: of the world, Like people can't wait for us to
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: come to Toronto, Canada. Same thing with London, England, Africa.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: And it's like we're highlighting entrepreneurs and we're explaining different
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: business ventures in a way that people can understand it.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: And it's just like music, right, like you might be
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: a huge jay Z fan, but you're from London and
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: he's from Brooklyn. It's just a little different as far
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: as the dialect, the things that he's rapping about is
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: not the same. But you genuinely you got to love
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: for the music and I feel like that the podcast
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: is the same thing like people. It might not be
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: specific as far as the stuff that we're talking about.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: A lot of this stuff is just is geared towards America.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: We're working on getting more international content, but they just
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: sty're encouraged by us by our delivery. And so our
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: goal with Earn Lisia is is to take this all
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: over the world and to have Summits platforms, podcast shows
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 4: in different countries and highlight entrepreneurs. Don't We're not going
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: to do the chrystical Columbus thing and just come with
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: people from America and shove all way of thinking on
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: other countries. We want to actually invite people that's doing
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: their thing in their countries and break it down because
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: a lot of times people business owners, they don't have
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: a platform and the people don't have a way to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: get the information from those people. So it's a disconnecting Yeah.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 5: There's people doing amazing things. Like you said, the woman
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: you spoke about earlier, who is the Oprah Winfrey in
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 5: the text space that was unfamiliar to us. You know
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 5: what I'm saying, there's no platform for her to be.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: It's not exploited, but displayed her greatness.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: I think it's so important at what we're doing here,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 5: and to do it internationally will be even more incredible.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 6: Well, I tell you, I was really moved by what
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: you both just said, and I'm going to make a
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 6: commitment to you. One of the reasons why a lot
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 6: of people want to be on your show is because
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 6: you give them a platform and you give them exposure.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 6: I want to be able to make a commitment to
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 6: you all and to help on the international scene. I've
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 6: got great friends and great relationships with entrepreneurs in Toronto,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 6: in London, and in Ghana. Okay, so I'm going to
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 6: help you breaking news alert, breaking news. I'm going to
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 6: help you to put those events together in Toronto, in London,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 6: but in Ghana.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna host you guys.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 6: Oh we'll tell you haven't oh man, I'm hosting you
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 6: and our family are gonna host you and bring you
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 6: all out so you can experience the country the way
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 6: it was supposed to be experienced.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: And will get you connected. And then but your job
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: is to just do what you do.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: That's it. We're going to do it big en after.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 7: A big.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: World. Why for real?
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: Oh Man Kwalme.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: I appreciate you, and like I said, this is all
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: it's all about relationships, and it's like we just met.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: You were actually, you know.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: An advocate for the podcast before we met you, which
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: is really dope because you're on the whole different coast
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: and it's all you know, a couple of degrees of separation.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: We interviewed Mike Brown, which you're invested in his company,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: and we met you at his event and you spoke
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: and kicked it off and then shout out to Mike
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: Brown also because even when you spoke, we still have
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: tie the dots on that and he's like, yo, yeah,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: should have called me on the podcast. I'm like, all right,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: let's do it, and so yeah, shout out to Mike
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: for actually quarterback.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: And on top of that, one of your students tell
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: us really quickly, I have a.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: Couple of mentees.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 6: I'm on the board of a university called North Central
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 6: University in Minneapolis, and a couple of students, young couple.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 6: They're my mentees. So I was in town having dinner
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 6: with them, and they had invested in Mike's company. So
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 6: I'm having dinner with.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: Them and I said, oh, man, I'm so excited. You
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: guys invested in.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 6: Win Win and which which one of my social media
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 6: posts influenced you to make a decision? And they call
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 6: me uncle Kwame, Uncle Kame, what do you mean? I
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 6: was like, didn't you invest because of me working with them?
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: You work with him?
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 6: I was like, how did you find out about when Win?
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 6: And he Michael. It's a couple of Michael and Grace.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 6: They just got engaged. Michael brings out his phone and
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 6: shows me the screenshot that a friend of his had
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 6: sent him of the EYL episode, and all she said
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 6: was you need to invest in this right now.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: That's crazy.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 6: We watched the episode. We love those guys, and we invested.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 6: So I'm very grateful to.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: You for what you told us the story. I was
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: just like, WHOA, yeah, No, your reach is incredible.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 6: That's probably I was saying with Toronto man literally had
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 6: a friend of mine was talking to and to recommend podcasts.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: And she's like, the number one was Eyl.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: She from Toronto. Shout out in Toronto, the first one.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: So now a shout to Toronto.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: Man, thank you.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: But yeah, so how can people contact your information on
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: you on your your business, different business ventures and uh yeah,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: any information that you want to give the public?
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 6: Sure, man, very very easy. First thing on the business side,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 6: get connected with me on LinkedIn. So it's just quime
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 6: k w A m E. Last name a n k
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 6: u ku. You definitely connect with me on LinkedIn. That's
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 6: the best platform for business networking in my opinion. Instagram,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 6: you know, we'll post this, my link will be there.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 6: And then the website is Blackstar that fund? Black Star
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 6: that fund.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: And what about the what's the company that you connect
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: people with in Africa?
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, black band dot co. Black black Band dot Co.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 6: Terry Apong phenomenal, phenomenal business leader and entrepreneur over there
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 6: on the ground making stuff happen.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 5: I appreciate that, Troy shout out to everybody on Patreon
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: dot com.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: Y'all know that it is our proud to pay program.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: It has grown over the months.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 5: We are so happy that everybody's come along the ride
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 5: with us. As you know, we have switched it up
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 5: a little bit giving you more content, so be on
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: the lookout for that. And I want to just give
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 5: a quick shout out to Havana. Uh we got Jessica
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: and Justin are new members. Man, y'all are Tier four
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 5: Tier five members, so you obviously know you have access
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: to Early Legion University. That is our online school where
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: we have webinars three times a week, real estate on Monday.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 5: We have a guest webinar every Wednesday, and shouty myself.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 5: We always do a business related one on Thursdays. And
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 5: ey Spno is out there, so be on the lookout
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 5: and thank you for supporting. Everybody's supporting the merchan only
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 5: leisure dot com new merch is on the way all
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 5: our earning. Be sure to cop the new merge. It's
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 5: specifically made for you by us, so thank you.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: Please report.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, everybody asks you about the track suit, so episode
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: comes out. Hopefully the tracksuit will be on the website
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: EYL University. Yes, make sure you stay in tune with that.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: And the book tip of this week recommended by our guests.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: The one thing, the one thing correct that's it. Yes,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: so yes, Thank you guys for rocking with us. We'll
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: see you next week.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: Peace, Peace, Peace.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador
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  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas. Man of Venezuelan charged with
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  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christine Noman, the United States
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  Speaker 1: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
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  Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned and deported, you will
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• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: border and families.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: Will be protected. Sponsored by the United States Department of
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: Homeland Security,