Latest / Financial Survival Network / Diversity, Inclusion, and Investment: A Candid Conversation with Kerry Lutz and Arlan Hamilton #5987

Transcript

Diversity, Inclusion, and Investment: A Candid Conversation with Kerry Lutz and Arlan Hamilton #5987 · Financial Survival Network

0:00
It was a conversation, right We talked about it all the time today diverse
0:02
I mean right now even as we speak, Mark Cuban and Eon are going
0:07
at it about diversity. I just posted about that myself because Mark Cuban has
0:11
invested six million dollars into Baxtage Capital, so I know what he believes.
0:16
But I think there needed to be more people in the seat of writing checks
0:22
and the position to write checks. And that's not the only part of it,
0:26
but that's a major part of it. You are listening to Carrie Let's's
0:29
Financial Survival Network, where you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else
0:36
to thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial Survival Network now more
0:41
than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com and get your free newsletter and
0:47
gift. Financial Survival Network now more than ever, and welcome you are listening
0:57
to and watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm here, Carrie Lott say it's
1:00
one ten twenty three. Got a special guest for you, a real inspiration
1:07
to myself, and I know she will be to you as well. Her
1:11
name is Arlen Hamilton, and Arlen the very unique individual. Her journey well
1:19
we all have unique journeys. Some are easier than others. She took the
1:26
long way, the hard way to get where she is now as a successful
1:30
venture capitalist. Arlen. Just a few short years ago, you were homeless,
1:38
and well, that's everybody's greatest fear is that you'll wake up without a
1:44
roof over your head. So you found yourself homeless. How'd that come about?
1:49
It was a series of events. It wasn't all at once, all
1:52
of a sudden. I had never brought up with money or anything like that.
1:57
Moved probably a dozen times while I was a child and teenager, just
2:01
because my mother was trying to make ends meet. Very very bright woman's who
2:08
I'm going to get to see today. I love traveling with her now,
2:14
just kind of you know, circumstances, circumstances. So then adult, just
2:19
having that starting kind of behind and never really had above water. And so
2:24
it was it was a series of events and several years of back and forth.
2:30
Sometimes I would have a place to live and it wouldn't be so great,
2:32
but it was a shelter, and sometimes I wouldn't. And it started
2:36
in my twenties was more of you know, CouchSurfing. It could be misconstrued
2:42
as kind of fun, being young, hanging out, and I like it
2:46
that way because I didn't want everyone to feel pity for me. But in
2:53
my thirties it got really serious because I, you know, I ended up
2:57
before I got my first investor for Backstage Capital, my venture fund, I
3:01
was sleeping on the floor of the San Francisco Airport that was my home.
3:06
Wow. Really yeah. In fact, I've met Queen Latifa and she wants
3:10
to She has said in passing, very very casually that she liked to play
3:16
me in a Pursuit of Happiness type of movie. Because of that. It's
3:21
really the same kind of story as I can't remember the guy's name, Gardner.
3:27
I think it was Will Smith played his character. It was an amazing
3:30
movie. And you know, so you were in California, you were homeless.
3:38
Yeah, it was in Texas, my hometown at Dallas, so I
3:40
was near a lot of this, and I gotten myself to California because I
3:46
knew that that's where I needed to be if I wanted to start this fund.
3:51
Right, So, what is your educational background? Like, I graduated
3:55
high school, I was very very bright, got into some colleges, but
4:00
not go to them because I did not want to leave my family behind to
4:03
worry about money. Also because uh, I'm you know, a bit of
4:09
an iconoclassed and I wasn't doing so well on the on the personality side of
4:13
school didn't so no, I took a few courses in community college just because
4:18
I'm a curious person and have just been learning ever since. Their life experiences
4:25
interesting interesting. So all right, so you have this vision, I guess
4:31
to start this fund And how did that come about? The vision? Yeah,
4:36
I was it was around so you know, I have many many lives,
4:42
and one of them I was working on tour with musicians as a production
4:45
coordinator. And it may sound a little fancy, but it's definitely you know,
4:51
hand to mouth, because you get a gig for four weeks and then
4:56
you're off the road. And sure, I was watching these these people like
5:01
Cie Loo and Tony Braxton and Jason Derulo have meetings with their business managers about
5:10
startups. And this was maybe twelve years ago, ten to twelve years ago,
5:15
and I was doing the thing where I was pretending not to be eaveshropping,
5:18
but I was totally taking notes. Well, they just did I call
5:23
us underestimated. You know, different people underestimated. I was definitely underestimated.
5:27
So people didn't realize. These lawyers and managers didn't realize I was actually really
5:32
taking note, and I thought, what would make someone like an Ellen DeGeneres,
5:36
who was doing this and a Justin Bieber who was doing this in Ashton
5:40
creature, what would make them interested in Silicon Valley with this plate it's called
5:46
Silicon Valley. So I started doing research and I realized, Oh, that's
5:48
me. I am that this is my people, these are my people,
5:51
this is my tribe. And so originally I was going to try to raise
5:57
money for a company. And as I started doing my research on that twenty
6:01
thirteen through twenty fifteen, that's what I learned. A star statistic that anyone
6:09
who's not a white man in the US who is raising obviously not every white
6:13
man gets access to capital, but who is raising in Silicon Valley and beyond
6:18
gets anyone other than that gets ten percent of the funding. So all women
6:25
across, all your wives, all your daughters, all the people that are
6:30
your friends are getting a crumbs. And I thought that is so interesting.
6:34
And white men make up about a third of the country a little bit less
6:38
than the third of the country, and they get three times that and funding.
6:43
And so I thought, as a black, queer woman in the South
6:46
with no connections and didn't go to college, I could probably find my way
6:51
to a million dollar raise because I'm I've been that girl. I've been that
6:55
woman. You know, I'm going to fire my way. But then what
6:58
happens next and what happens to my college leagues and my peers. So I
7:01
thought the well, you know, instead of trying to raise a million dollars
7:04
for a company, what if I raised a million dollars to invest and then
7:08
I'm writing checks and I get to have a saint, I get a seat
7:12
at the table, I might have influence. I get to help decide who
7:15
gets heard and who gets to move forward with their innovations. And I just
7:23
got on that track. And I just happened to be homeless when I when
7:28
I decided that, And it's a it's been a wild ride, but we
7:31
certainly have come far from that point. Interesting, So what do you attribute
7:39
the fact that these people only get ten percent of the deals going out there?
7:45
Is it they're not out there pounding the pavement? Is it just discrimination?
7:50
Or is it expectations? What is it? The not pounding the pavement
7:56
is is very humorous. The reason I wanted to start the fund was not
8:03
just because I'm a great person, because I am, but it's also because
8:05
I want I've always, since I was like five, played Monopoly, and
8:09
I've always wanted to be rich. And this is how you do it.
8:13
Because the people that I'm describing, women, people of color, LGBTQ,
8:16
plas, et cetera. Every single day of our lives. So we have
8:20
to play harder and faster and better to be considered equal. If that so,
8:24
there was pounding of the pavement out of this world. It was just
8:28
that they're gatekeepers and their doors closed. So everyone has been in this position,
8:33
no matter who you are, even Elon Musk, even the richest men
8:35
in the world, had been in a position where somebody did not appreciate their
8:41
value and did not believe in them, and did not believe given them.
8:43
And think think about that, you know, at scale, So I have
8:48
been I am will fast forward a little bit to say that I have now
8:50
invested in more than two hundred companies. I've been on the cover of Fast
8:54
Company, I was just on ABC news nationally. I have two books out
8:58
by major publishers, and today I was mistaken for someone who worked at this
9:03
hotel at Cees today. Yeah, forty three years old. So if that
9:09
is happening to me, and I am as audacious and strong willed as they
9:13
come, think about what must be happening to your friends and what happens to
9:18
you sometimes just think about that at scale. So I think it had to
9:24
do with that. I also think that, you know, ten years ago,
9:28
only a very small percentage of the people who were writing checks for white
9:33
men. So a lot of it is who went to my college, who's
9:37
in my fraternity? Who do I have with network? Yeah, it's networks.
9:41
And you know, the more diverse you're just look at your wedding pictures.
9:46
That's one way. Okay, look at your wedding pictures and see how
9:48
diverse it was. No matter how advanced and it developed youth and enlightened you
9:56
think human by and I'm talking generally, not to you directly, there's always
10:01
room for us to grow. And so I was seeing that very early before
10:07
it was a conversation. Right, we talk about it all the time today.
10:09
Diverse I mean right now, even as we speak, Mark Cuban and
10:13
Elon are going at it about diversity. I just posted about that myself because
10:18
Mark Cuban has invested six million dollars into backstage capital, so I know what
10:24
he believes. But I think there needed to be more people in the seat
10:28
of writing checks, in the position to write checks. And that's not the
10:33
only part of it, but that's a major part of it, and that's
10:35
what I set out today. So opportunity important for everyone that they have an
10:41
opportunity. But what part does merit play in this? Yeah, it plays
10:46
a lot of merit. I think that question comes up. And I speak
10:50
in front of all different types of audiences around the world, and sometimes I
10:52
speak in the front of audiences that are just straight up private equity. Every
10:56
person in the seat is a man who is white. And I get people
11:00
who will come up to me and after I speak and they say, look,
11:03
I didn't have it easy. I got to my position by hard work,
11:07
determination, talent, studying, et cetera. Not taking that away from
11:11
anyone, but in order for a woman or a person of color to walk
11:16
out of their own home in America, they have to go through a landmine
11:22
of things. They have to. Some black people don't know if they're going
11:26
to make it back home, and I'm not being hyperbolic. Some people they
11:31
or their children are going to make it back home that night because there might
11:35
be some small road incident that turns into something very escalated. My niece is
11:39
seventeen. My mother bought her her first car and she was an a fender
11:45
bender, and we were terrified, not because we thought she might have you
11:50
know, of course we were worried about her physical health of getting in the
11:52
accident, but it was a fender bender. We were more concerned with what
11:58
the reaction to law by law enforcement would be. And that is not our
12:03
you know, our fault. I think if you were to talk about merit
12:09
based pound for pound, on equal footing, and we're seeing this in our
12:15
portfolio, we're seeing this everywhere that if we're going to really be real,
12:22
many of the people that I invest in would lap a lot of the successful
12:24
white men if we're talking merit based. So I think personally they should actually
12:31
start hushing up a little bit more about that, because if we really reveal
12:37
and put the light on it there, they may be deeply disappointed. But
12:46
I'm here for equality. I'm here for diversity, and that means true diversity.
12:50
If you look at my team and across the years and today, it
12:54
is true diversity. So one thing, race capital for company qualified people,
13:01
all right, A lot of times because they're not the right skin color,
13:05
whatever beliefs group, they don't get it. But what about when you start
13:11
getting into like airline pilots. All right, Okay, do I pick somebody
13:18
because they're the right color or because they can fly the plane better? Well,
13:24
I mean I don't know you, well, so I don't know where
13:28
you're like, what intention you're coming with that question, but I will tell
13:31
you you want both. Because a if a black woman cannot even get to
13:37
the point where she can take the classes and study the thousands of hours that
13:43
are necessary, how is she supposed to be as good as the next person.
13:46
So, like Mark Cuban said recently, I know this personally because my
13:52
mother and I have put a black woman through pilot school over the past.
13:58
Yes, so I noticed qualified. There are so many hurdles they have to
14:03
jump. Anyone who wants to be a commercial pilot, anyone so many hurdles.
14:07
There's no way to accidentally become a pilot, there's no way to accident.
14:16
So if if there are more people who are given the opportunity to even
14:22
start the program, they will select themselves out or not by their acumen along
14:28
the way. We would hope we would because we don't want you'll agree that
14:33
we don't want unqualified people flying the planes, and we don't want unqualified people
14:39
look in the air traffic control center steering those planes around, because it's going
14:45
to result in disaster, regardless whom they might be, regardless they're right.
14:50
I agree with you one. I flied every week of the year. Of
14:54
course I believe that I care about people's safety. But I think again,
14:58
I think that question comes from a place and has for other people of well,
15:03
I don't want to put necessarily put a black person there because they're not
15:07
if they're not as qualified just because they're black. That's not what we're saying.
15:09
We're not saying higher pilots because they're black. We're saying, give black
15:15
more black people the opportunity to become pilots. And no one can argue with
15:20
that, and no one could argue with it. But do you want to
15:22
put them ahead of other people because they've been disadvantaged or should they compete on
15:28
a level playing field. They should absolutely compete on a level playing field.
15:33
I wouldn't want it any other way because they have more lives in their hands
15:37
than most surgeons will have in a lifetime or right exact. So I agree
15:43
with that, But tell me who is putting black people ahead of the line
15:46
when it comes to pilots. It's absolutely ridiculous. When is the last time
15:52
you saw a black pilot? When is the last time you I was not
15:54
a plane to Colombia and both the pilots were black, And I tell you,
16:00
both of those pilots went through years of training for sure, which you
16:07
know. So I don't as long as as alls they're safe and they're qualified.
16:12
I mean, there was an instance, okay in LaGuardia Southwest Airlines plane,
16:18
two female pilots. They weren't I don't want to say they weren't qualified,
16:25
but they had an incident that crash and landed the plane right before the
16:30
runway. All right. Now, Hey, when there's an incident, the
16:36
FAA has got to be there. They got to check it out. But
16:38
these two pilots were not necessarily that they weren't qualified. They weren't qualified to
16:45
be there with each other because their weaknesses kind of canceled out, kind of
16:51
compounded. So I just want to see the people who are going to be
16:56
best at the job be there. I don't want to ever see anyone exclu
17:00
looted because of their background, their race, or any other reason. You
17:04
know, and I know that's happened in the past. You can't deny that
17:07
it's true, and it happens now. I would say a couple of things
17:11
that one is tell me the list of incidents that have happened with men pilots.
17:18
What happens, it happens. Be sure piloting is not only a has
17:25
to be a merrit based industry or or occupation, but it's also the printice
17:32
based. So again, the point of this is not just to put anybody
17:37
in that seat, and that's not happening, by the way, no one
17:38
is doing that. But the point of it is the A lot of the
17:45
pilots I see are older, older white men, yeah, and shortage.
17:48
We need them, we need I want to be safe on the plane.
17:52
I don't want an older white man who can't see as well anymore. I
17:55
don't want an older white man who can't react as well. We everybody needs
17:59
to be balanced. It needs to be balanced. So we need to train
18:03
more people, regardless of their race or their gender. We need to train
18:07
more qualified people, sure, and give them an opportunity in doing so.
18:11
That needs to include people of color. Because we're here. I'll tell you
18:17
one thing is that the retirement age is sixty five. All right, Yeah,
18:21
And you know I have a personal friend who's the senior most pilot at
18:26
a major legacy airline carrier. No one had more experience than their worked for
18:32
the FAA, was the chief safety pilot of this airline. He had to
18:37
go at sixty five, even though he's perfectly fine to go. So there's
18:41
some discrimination there. The guy sixty five and you know, sixty five is
18:47
not what it used to be, and they allow him to fly private aircraft.
18:51
So where's the equity there? I mean, that's age agism, you
18:56
know, just just as just as bad and are found as any other type
19:03
of discrimination on sixty We don't disagree there. We can all disagree there.
19:07
So imagine you're sixty six, and imagine every single day, not just certain
19:11
things that you could apply to, but every single moment every single day of
19:15
your life from now on. Imagine that someone is looking at you and saying,
19:19
he can't do that. He's sixty six. You can't do it,
19:22
he's sixty seven. That's what it's what it's like to be a black woman
19:26
in America. Yeah, well I'm not on the plane, son owner on
19:30
my shoulder. Well, your friend, though, is qualified to write your
19:36
friend shouldn't doing his discriminated gyuard. That's what's happening on both sides. So
19:40
we do not disagree. Yeah, so, so it's bad on all counts.
19:44
And you know, and they got rid of him. Now they have
19:48
a pilot shortage, right, they could have given them a couple more years.
19:52
The FA has been talking about this for years and years. I think
19:56
you should go on MSNBC and talk about something like that, or seeing in
20:00
and talk about it. I think it's very well. I think he should
20:04
too, but he's not going to. But I love the fact that you're
20:10
helping people who basically, and look, I have no love for Wall Street
20:15
and love for our government, but basically who's had their backs People earn their
20:22
societies turn their backs on them, just like they did to you. So
20:27
the fact that you pulled yourself up and you did it right. Doesn't that
20:33
mean that others got the potential to do it as well? Yes, of
20:38
course I do. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing, which is great
20:41
because to me, you know, remember that old commercial mind is a terrible
20:47
thing to waste, but potential not realized is a crime. Yeah. Right,
20:56
So how do you pick somebody and you say, this person failed at
21:00
everything, but I believe in you and I think you can do this.
21:04
You got to have criteria, right. I don't to elect people who have
21:07
failed at everything. I see a thousand companies a year, and that's not
21:11
hyperbole. I see a thousand companies a year, and we invest in maybe
21:15
one percent of that. I do not choose people who have failed at everything.
21:19
I choose people who are like your friend the pilot who is sixty six
21:23
or sixty seven, who can outdo anybody that he is near. But it's
21:29
just being not given a chance to prove that in where it should be.
21:36
So how do you find it because obviously a lot of them haven't had the
21:38
success yet in life that they're probably going to have. That to me is
21:44
the hardest thing is because you got demands, right, I look at as
21:49
what have you done with the resources you have? So I have to,
21:53
you know, really really paint this picture. I have a limited amount of
21:56
funds, I have LPs who are looking to get in a return on an
22:00
investment. And personally, I could be a nonprofit or any philanthropic, which
22:04
I am philindropic of giving away millions of dollars with my personal money. But
22:08
I'm here to do a good job. So it's painting the picture of people
22:11
who are coming to me. First of all, it's not easy to just
22:15
have a moment. Someone earlier today said can I get fifteen minutes of your
22:18
time? And I just looked at it and blinked, and I said,
22:21
I don't know. My mother can't get fifteen minutes of my time like that,
22:23
so I don't know how you can. So first of all, it
22:27
is you know, getting in the role. Obviously, we're not gatekeeper,
22:32
so we're not saying if you didn't go to school, or you're not this
22:33
person or connected, you can't. So there is an application process, but
22:37
we'd have a thirty person apprentice apprenticeship team who ors through applications to surface the
22:45
one or two a month that the partner should be looking at. Second of
22:49
all, as I've invested over the year, because we've been invested in quite
22:52
a few companies to accelerate the growth, my criteria has changed, and I
23:00
do I'm an entrepreneur first, so I have several different things that I work
23:03
on. So I'm not I'm not a big you know, Wall Street fan
23:07
either. I'm not a big like nerd when it comes to that. But
23:11
I say, is this something, obviously, because can it make money?
23:15
Is it already making money with the resources you have? What is the grouse
23:19
whor what is your unfair advantage? But then I also say, could I
23:22
do this if I if I applied myself, could I do this in a
23:26
ten year period myself? Could I build this? And if I can,
23:30
it's not interesting to me anymore. But if I can't, if I feel
23:33
like it would take me more than a decade or even a lifetime to get
23:37
anywhere close to what you're working on, that is exciting to me. And
23:40
that's how that's my barometer. And then we have people at the team who
23:44
you know, use their sheets in there different you know, we have a
23:47
certain criteria of course, but there's a woman for Insince who is a doctor,
23:51
black woman, and she is a very uh you know, rarefied air
23:56
no pun. She has a company called air and they're creating protein the from
24:03
air. They have an air farm, an airfarm, and this is technology
24:07
started at NASA in the seventies and then left and they took over this.
24:11
So she's been working on this for twenty some years in different ways, and
24:15
then twenty nineteen, I believe she started air Protein and they have very few
24:21
competitors. Their competitors are they have raised themselves. Air Protein has raised more
24:26
than one hundred million dollars because Agacuture understands this, these moodshot ideas, and
24:33
she's absolutely brilliant. A few years ago when I was when I was starting,
24:37
people thought she was crazy. People thought she's not qualified, she can't
24:41
fly this plane. And now she's figured it out right. And so these
24:44
are the people I'm talking to. I'm not talking I'm not talking to.
24:48
You have to get through medical score, right, she's a doctor, Yeah,
24:52
exactly. It's so it's it's that there's a company in our portfolio called
24:57
a cash who had that has invented a technology that cools objects in space.
25:03
More than any other material on this planet or other planets that we know right
25:10
obviously, and so it's colder than ice. It is. It is up
25:14
for the Chips program, which is one hundred and fifty million dollars grant if
25:18
they were to get that from the governments, on a short list for that.
25:21
And this is a black man who used to when I met him in
25:23
twenty seventeen, would not put his photograph on the website because he has lost
25:29
deals when they saw who the person was. We have another company, black
25:33
man, incredible company. He had an investor online. They met up at
25:38
a Denny's or something. He walks into the Dennis. The guy says,
25:41
Oh, didn't realize he was black. Reneges on his deal. These are
25:47
real life of things that are happening, and they're not us with a chip
25:52
on our shoulder or trying to cause trouble. Is happening. So as long
25:56
as that's happening, I think the fund is necessary, and funds like ours,
25:59
many have spun out from ours. But if I had in my way,
26:04
I would just be waking up every day looking at great deals and looking
26:07
at great innovation. I wouldn't have all this other stuff involved. It's it's
26:12
it's taxing. You know what I mean, it's taxing. Yeah, oh
26:18
yeah. Now I've looked at a lot of deals in my life and I
26:22
know eximply what you're talking about. So what do you feel most proud of
26:26
in your life? Warlan? The people who come up to me. The
26:30
fact that people come up to me every day if I'm out and about are
26:36
they right to me if I'm not and tell me some way that I've helped
26:41
them without knowing it. Today And I say today this, I was downstairs
26:44
at CES and so I ran into a lot of people. One was a
26:48
black woman today like two hours ago, who and I filmed it? She
26:52
said, I just wanted to introduce myself. I was at Columbia. One
26:56
of our professors did the Harvard Business case study about you. It encouraged me
27:03
and inspired me to become a venture capitalist. I've been in the VC for
27:07
two years now. That happens every day and it's only stronger. And so
27:15
I'm very proud of that, and the fact that I have kept my integrity
27:18
intact when so many times I've been offered hush money. I've been offered money
27:25
to go away, I've been offered money, to be quiet, to be
27:29
less than all the things. And I mean this, you know, across
27:33
the board, and I have turned it down every single time because it's important
27:37
to do the thing you thought about running working for the government. Here we
27:44
need more people like you there. Oh wow, No, but you know
27:48
what I'm exciting. Yeah, I know what you're saying. I agree with
27:52
you. I mean I I think it's interesting how so many people have been
27:59
disinfe franchised by the government but are on opposite sides, and they feel like
28:03
they're they can't relate even though it's so relatable. Right, It's like to
28:08
me, I don't know your your affiliation or your audience, but the people,
28:12
most of the people who support Trump, if they talked to most people
28:18
of color, would understand that we're very similar. Everybody wants the same things.
28:23
They want them to go to decent schools. They want you want to
28:26
live in a safe community. You want to have the opportunity to improve your
28:32
life and provide for your family. We all want the same things. It's
28:37
when interested parties get involved and hit us against one another that we wind up
28:45
at each other's throats, and then we don't really notice the big picture,
28:48
what's really going on and why they're doing it. Yeah, and they have
28:52
their feet on the desk counting dollars, counting hundred dollar bills and laughing at
28:57
the end of the world. Ye, they're in the stream. Yeah,
29:00
happens all the time, across, across, color, across. It's nothing
29:07
to do with that. It's power. It's power and money. It's got
29:11
nothing to do. They don't care if anything about who you are, what
29:17
race you are. All they want to do is just divide and conquer.
29:21
That's it. They don't care. So so I really admire what you've done.
29:27
If there's one thing you could change in your life, what would it
29:32
be. I was addicted to alcohol from twenty one to thirty six, and
29:37
I've been sober for six and a half years now. May rats. It's
29:41
a book called This Naked Mind, by Mind, by any grace, if
29:45
anybody's interested in cutting down or quitting totally. I read it over five days,
29:52
and I didn't pick up a drink since, and I was addicted.
29:55
I'm drinking every single day, So I would change. I would have done
29:57
that sooner. I would have stopped sooner. Well, because it always I
30:00
would just point out to you. You know, it always is nice to
30:04
do the drill of going back and changing, but you know, it's kind
30:10
of like that little butterfly that flaps its wings because he's a tsunami and you
30:15
couldn't be you if you didn't get Yeah, I answered that way because you
30:19
asked that question. But you usually I say I have no regrets of any
30:25
failures or anything. Even people ask me like, would you go back and
30:29
what would you change about how you went from where you are to now?
30:33
Would you have wanted that to be easier or faster? And I always say
30:37
no, because we have no idea where we were saying the same thing.
30:41
We would have no idea what today would look like if that were different in
30:45
any way. All the things that kind of fell through, and I talk
30:48
a lot about them in my book Your First Million, that came out just
30:51
a few days ago, all the things that fell through. You'll read about
30:55
a five million dollar deal I had with Charles Gone. I can't pronown his
31:00
name, but the one who was like extradite or the one who's like,
31:03
you know, on the run from Nissan. I had to deal with his
31:07
company for five years old. Yeah, right, two weeks all those things.
31:14
At the time, I'm just like, Wow, knocked me off my
31:18
fiend, But I got back up, right? But what if what if
31:22
the butterfly effect, let's go back and seek. What if that had gone
31:26
through? Would I be in sound cubicle right now having to answer to certain
31:32
person? Would I had not have invested in the last one hundred of the
31:33
two hundred companies I invested in? Who knows? So yeah, I don't
31:38
regret that, but I do I think I was suffering through the alcoholism,
31:42
and I would have liked to like at lope. So that's the only thing
31:47
that kind of comes close to what I would change. So so one final
31:51
point, Okay, failure, all right, it's indispensable, teacher. You
31:59
can't get any in life unless you've failed, And if you do get there
32:01
without any failures, you're probably not going to appreciate any way that you got
32:07
there. How can you help people embrace failure in a way that will ensure
32:17
that they succeed? When you said the question, it cut out, So
32:22
how can I help people? So? How do you help people embrace their
32:28
past failures, accept them just like you have, and build upon them,
32:32
build their eventual success upon them? Because it seems to me from the time
32:37
we go to school and you're told no, no, no, and when
32:43
you fail a test, you're ostracized. You know that red f on your
32:49
exam, and you do everything in your power to avoid failing, even at
32:57
the expense of succeeding. And to me, that is like one of the
33:00
biggest problems we have in our society is that just because you fail does not
33:06
make you a failure, and you should be happy you failed because you understand
33:13
it and you can learn from it one hundred percent. Early in my in
33:16
my venture career, I met with Aaron Leevy, the CEO and founder of
33:22
Box dot com multimillion dollar and he told me about and he was super young
33:27
when he started it, but he told me about all the failures quote unquote
33:30
failures he had prior to that. If you think about the times that Elon
33:35
has and his team have shot rockets into space and they haven't landed, or
33:39
they have blown up, or they have that you have to have that happen
33:44
in order for it to actually work. You have to have the experience and
33:47
the moments for that to work. And so I think of it as a
33:51
numbers game. Every single time someone told me no. As I was raising
33:54
millions of dollars and generating millions of dollars in revenue of the past decade,
33:59
every single time someone told me no, which was far more time than I
34:01
was told yes, I thought of it as a numbers game. I have
34:05
to get through the nose to reach the es. And if I'm getting too
34:08
and yes's I'm not asking for I'm not asking for enough, right, so
34:14
everybody, there are a lot of people get paralyzed with fear of failing,
34:19
like he said, and they're letting the years go by, and then that
34:23
kind of compounds and they feel like they can't break out of that. My
34:27
mother started her eyewear line at seventy four and it's been one of the brightest
34:30
moments of her life. And it didn't take a lot to do it.
34:35
She helped design it, she partnered with someone who could manufacture and distribute,
34:38
and then she's been doing pop ups and being the model for it. So
34:42
you can all she I would say, would agree that she feels like she's
34:46
had a lot of failures because again, we moved around a lot, and
34:50
we didn't have a lot of money, and it was tough that was on
34:52
her. Feel that failure. Imagine if she had let that stop her.
35:00
That can eat eat it you like a cancer. So there's so many people
35:04
and so many things in this world that are against you, naturally and unnaturally.
35:09
Don't be your own detriment. Don't be your own saboteur, your own
35:15
worst sorry, your own worst John. Be your best friend, not your
35:22
worst enemy. Hey, the book is your first million by Arlen Hamilton.
35:28
Uh, I assume it's sold on Amazon and wherever fine books used to be
35:32
sold. Ah, that's correct, major major publishers, at Airport, at
35:37
Hudson's, it said, Target Bronson. Uh, it's across any do library
35:43
if you want to do that. Please also support indie bookstores. They're the
35:46
most important of these. Yeah. I used to spend hours in them,
35:51
but no more. I'm afraid that's too hard to find, especially by me
35:54
here in Florida. It's a few left, but you know, it's just
36:00
a different now. Hey, really appreciate your coming on, Arlan, and
36:04
really admire your journey and what you've accomplished, and can only imagine what lies
36:10
ahead for you. If you've got a question for Arlin myself, shoot me
36:15
an email Kyl at Carrie LUTs dot com and make sure you sign up for
36:19
your free newsletter at Financial Survival Network dot com. Arland, been a pleasure
36:24
and love to talk to you again and talk about some other things, other
36:29
challenges you've faced and people you've helped. Yeah, I would love that.
36:32
Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network,
36:37
your solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork
36:44
dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than ever,