WEBVTT - EYL #73 Cloth Talk 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.600 An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:07.480 in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:11.840 accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:15.840 filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.680 some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.320 Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:28.120 Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.680 crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:34.960 one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.920 are here illegally, your next you will be fined nearly 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:43.000 one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.680 never return. But if you register using our CBP home 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.120 app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally. 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:55.240 Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws, 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:57.840 border and families will be protected. 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:00.000 Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security. 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:02.840 All right, guys, welcome back. E y L. 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:08.000 South Beach Edition. And you can't tell by the backdrop 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:10.000 because he's going to do the other side. But we 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:14.520 in Miami right now, the rain is outment. It's still 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:15.520 better weather than New York. 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.920 We'll any day. We'll take that for sure. 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:21.399 So, you know, we try to do interviews when we're 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.000 on the road, and we know sometimes we have it planned, 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:27.640 sometimes just impromptu. So this is an impromptu. We met 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.720 a superstar in the tech world and somebody that we 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.160 really thought we would add value to the podcast. So 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:38.880 kwame Uncle just a brilliant star in the tech world. 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:41.720 He was actually just found out. He was a start 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:45.200 the co founder of Black Angel Tech Fund, which was 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.920 the first tech fund in America that was focused on 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:53.200 African American entrepreneurs, right, and now he's the CEO of 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:58.240 Black Star Fund, which is a tech fund that looks 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.800 for predominantly is where black people aretists are. 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:05.640 The start is top twenty five black venture venture capitalists 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:06.920 to watch from pitch book. 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:07.640 That's right, man. 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:12.440 Yeah, and Stanford, Stanford alumni. So we're gonna talk about 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:13.840 that because that's an interesting within itself. 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:14.280 Thank you. 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.120 But so yeah, yeah, and you're currently your firm is 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.200 currently invested in nine companies. 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.760 Right, nine companies that's right all over the country. Yeah, 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:23.200 you know, I mean humbly met you. 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.359 We were at an event and we walked over like, hey, guys, 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:28.120 I'm a huge fan. I'm like, Okay, this is great, 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:29.919 and then as we spoke more, I'm like, wait, this 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:31.280 guy is a superstar. 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:32.840 I appreciate it. 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:34.920 Before we jump into I want to say, you know, 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:37.080 you got fans all over the world. 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:38.760 I was just in Ghana, and. 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.239 I just want to say, as a fan myself, I'm 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:43.520 so proud of you all of the work you're doing 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:46.560 and the impact that you're having on the consciousness, the 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.000 business consciousness, the mindset of our people, not only in 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:51.600 the United States but all over the world. 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.120 No, I appreciate that. Thank you, and shout out to 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:57.600 Ghana too. We're gonna talk about Africa a little later too, 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.520 because I know your roots are from Ghana, right, your 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:06.560 African American, first generation African America, your family, your parents 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:08.720 have roots in their families from Ghana. 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.000 That's right, that's right. Yeah, return, we just passed. Yeah, 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:12.920 we just stopped there for that. 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:14.840 Yeah, talking about Yeah, yeah, so I definitely want to 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.320 talk about Ghana. But yeah, so, first and foremost, thank 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:17.920 you for joining us. 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:18.440 Appreciate it. 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:19.640 It's my pleasure, of my honor. 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:20.080 Yeah. 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:22.240 So we're gonna jump right into the tech world because 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:23.800 we haven't really covered tech that much and a lot 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:25.240 of people have been asking us. So the first I 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.360 want to start at Stanford because this is something not 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:29.040 to graze over. 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.560 People don't understand how powerful that school is. 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:36.680 I think like thirty something billionaires in the tech world 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:41.680 to have graduated from Stanford. Guys a lot of even 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:44.800 so I think one particular professor still is a professor 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:47.920 at Stanford, and a lot of guys take his class 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.400 because he's a VC guy too, and he gives money 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.160 to different the Airbnb through that today somebody, somebody did that. 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.640 They Yeah, but I say that to say a lot 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.680 of times people don't fully understand how networking is and 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:06.320 network So coming out of such a prestigious claw off. 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.360 As far as going to Stanford as an African American, 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.480 I'm assuming you was in a minority. How has how 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:15.840 was that experience and how has that experience helped you 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:18.599 now that you're in the VC world yourself. 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:22.000 Yeah, that's a great, great question. So lots of pieces, 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:25.039 lots of parts there. You got to keep in mind 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.919 that the times are very different. You know, I'm not 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:32.200 sixty or seventy years I'm forty seven, so early nineties. Yeah, 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:34.120 but the times were different. I meaning the first time 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:39.080 I saw the Internet, I was a senior in college. Right, 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:41.880 So when we talk about networking today and the ability 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.320 to get connected to people through these incredible social networks 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.560 that we have and it's easy, that was not our reality. 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:51.400 That was not our world at the time. So it's 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:55.640 much harder to get connected to people. And I'm fully 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:59.520 transparent with you, I did not understand the power and 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.600 prestige each of the Stanford name when I graduated as 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:07.520 a minority student there there was a lot of the turmoil, 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.080 and so when we graduated, we weren't thinking about, well, 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:11.840 how can we start donating back to Stanford? 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.600 It was expensive. I mean a lot of people get 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:17.279 closer than that. Like a lot of times the schools 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:19.560 have boosters right there, alumni and all their boosters. Like 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:22.960 where we come from, it's like once we graduate schools, like, how. 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:23.560 Can we pay it back? 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.440 That's the loans, that's not to the school, that's right. 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:28.440 And you don't understand that, like and part of the problem, 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:29.479 I think again, it's a mindset. 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:30.640 Right, I'm twenty two. 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.920 I don't understand at that point in my life that 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:37.000 I'm part of the elite country club, because in my mind, 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:39.480 even though I was there, even though I have the diploma, 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:41.960 I was not a part of the country club. I 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:42.599 just didn't realize. 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:43.279 It didn't feel like that. 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.560 It didn't feel like it. So I didn't realize it, 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.159 and it didn't feel like it. Now later in my 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:52.800 professional life, I'm maturing. I'm understanding the power of networks. 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.840 I'm understanding what I call success by association. I'm starting 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:57.600 to understand those. 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.480 Principles success by association. Can you explain, I interres I've 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.400 never heard that before, but I understand what it means. 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:03.159 But you explain that. 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:04.920 I think we've got plenty of arguments about this. 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.000 Okay, Yeah, So it doesn't mean that you will be 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:12.520 successful simply because I'm Rashad's friend. But what it means 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.880 is that I'm accelerating my ability to get to that 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:20.880 place of success, and I'm establishing this intense credibility that 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:23.320 I might not have on my own, but because I'm 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:26.600 with you. So when I was a kid, my mom 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:28.839 my mom even though she's half going to aint half British, 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.840 so she had a British accidents, so she'd always go, well, 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.400 you know, kwame buds of a feather flown. 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:36.680 Together everybody in London? 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:38.240 I mean, like what does that mean? 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:40.120 But then you know, you get older, you figure out 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:40.719 I was good. 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.360 The cats that you roll with speak to who you. 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:47.200 Are because I like what you said, because it's like 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.160 a lot of times, how you look and how your 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.800 word things is extremely important. So peer pressure is something 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:53.640 that we hear a lot growing up, and we always 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.000 look at it from a negative connotation, like, but it's 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.159 positive peer pressure. We spoke about that the podcast before 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.159 and which you said as far as six by association. 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.000 All the time growing up we had guilty by association. 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.080 That happens all the time. You're guilty by association. You mean, 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:10.040 like the people that you hang out with, you're going 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:11.920 to be guilty just by hanging out with them. I 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.800 never heard anybody say success by association. So it's like 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:16.640 you got to change the way that we actually use 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.200 words where we look at things, and it's like if 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.280 we could be guilty by association, we could be successful. 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.920 Bad language is important, it's triven. 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:25.600 The thing is a lot of times it's math, right, 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:29.320 what I guarantee you, you and your audience I already 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.800 understand principles around the people you hang that. There's a 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.000 phrase that we hear all the time and money, Right, 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.640 your net worth is the average of the five people 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:43.880 you spend the most time with. Right now, most people 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.960 have heard that and know that what I'm saying, I'm 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.200 just adding those two concepts together. Well, wait a second, 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:51.480 Like you said, if we always talk about guilt by association, 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.160 but we also know that your your net worth is 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.520 the average of the five people you spend the most time with, 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.840 then that means if you're around successful people, you're going 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.480 to be successful by association. How they think about money, 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:06.960 how they think about life, how they live life, the 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.520 decisions that they make. It becomes a part of your 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:11.560 process because you're around them. 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:12.880 Right I'll give you an example. 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:15.760 I'm reading a book right now called The One Thing 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.520 by Gary Keller, and it's this whole we've already heard 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.440 about time management and prioritizing. 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:22.800 He makes it really simple. 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:25.280 He say, look, you know, every day when you wake up, 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.640 there's one thing that you need to do that will 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:28.280 help you. 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:32.520 To be to get the success faster. Focus on that. 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:32.920 That's it. 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.319 Focus on that thing, one thing at a time. Yeah, 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:37.319 right right, So he said we got to do lists. 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:39.480 He said, you need to start writing down success lists. 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.480 What are the successful steps? And sometimes, like in my world, 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.520 it's as easy as making one phone call. If you 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.440 call this one person who you know loves you, supports you, 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.840 is extremely successful and extremely well connected. But you're doing 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.640 five other things under the pretense, well, I got these 0:08:57.679 --> 0:08:59.320 other things I gotta do, but do this one first, 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:01.440 so that at the end of the day, even if 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:03.840 you haven't finished your to do list, the fact that 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.199 you made that one call and got an appointment to 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:08.079 go see that person is going to start. 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.280 To open up opportunities. 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:10.800 Right. 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:13.560 So that's that's that's that's what you said that you 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:15.439 were part of the country club but you didn't feel 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:15.640 like it. 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:17.600 Yeah, what what was that like? Because this is. 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.320 Cali in the early nineties. How did you fight to 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:21.520 fight that that barrier? 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:23.960 How did how did I start to feel like I 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:24.840 was part of the country club? 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:27.640 Well both so, so like not feeling like it and 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.600 being it and then actually becoming aware of it, and 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:31.800 like how did that? 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:32.360 Yes? 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:34.200 Well, I mean the thing is is funny, man. It 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:36.679 feels like ancient history. But like when we saw all 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:43.000 the the barrage of those pain, painful videos of police brutality. 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:47.280 Right a couple of years ago now Ferguson and the 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:49.720 brother in Louisiana, and it was just like this, day 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.880 after day after day when I was in school, is 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.319 the first time we had a global viral video of 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:56.080 police brutality. 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.280 R king, I'll never forget it. Actually happened on my 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:02.040 birthday and like ninety one, that's right. I was like 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:04.360 that crazy, I'll never forget it, And that's what I'm 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.160 thinking at that time. This is the timate of California. 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.960 That's exactly right, right, So for us, it was this 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:12.880 feeling of like, wait a second, this is the stuff 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:14.679 that was supposed to be happening in the sixties and 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:18.720 the seventies. I personally had experienced these issues with the police, 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.400 being profiled, being in a very I had guns put 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:24.080 in my head when I was in LA when I 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.640 was in high school, I had gotten attacked by the police. 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.400 They thought I'd stolen stuff. So it really hit home 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.320 and we and basically the feeling was if we're here 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:36.320 at this most elite school where we have all this power, 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:38.840 but we could be anywhere and be treated like a 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.840 Rodney King. Something's gotta change, right, But we weren't connected 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:45.280 to other campuses because again we didn't have the technology. 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:47.160 So that was a lot of the thing of feeling 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:49.520 like is this really for us? Do they let a 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:51.720 couple of us in? Are we really a part of 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:52.079 the thing? 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:54.480 So at what point do you get into tech then? 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.000 Because I know so obviously tech wasn't your main focus 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.520 going into college since it was just starting out things 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.080 on nature. So at what point do you decide I 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.280 want to be have a benure capital fund and invest 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:06.719 money into tech entrepreneurs. 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:07.199 It's funny. 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.000 A friend of mine always says that the dots don't 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.360 connect when you look in front of you. So when 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:14.680 I look back, I actually got into tech when I 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.200 was ten years old. I literally started to learn how 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:20.120 to code when I was ten. I went to a 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.440 computer coding camp when I was in fifth grade. This 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:24.960 is like green screen, yeah you know what I mean. 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.520 And I was fascinated Star Wars. I was fascinated by technology, 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.400 and I was fascinated by production and just you know, 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:35.600 green screen and the whole creating of production through technology. 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:37.520 So it was actually in me when I was when 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.280 I was a younger person, and I believe it or not, 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.400 the editing software popular editing software used today, Adobe Premiere. 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.199 Right when I was in school, I was part of 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.360 the beta testing team of Adobe Premiere at one point, 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:54.240 oh of college. Yeah, so the idea that you know, 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.440 we can we can edit video using computers when I 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.240 went into college, that didn't exist by the end I 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.440 was testing that stuff. So technology had always been interesting 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.319 to me. I was working with Prince is how I 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:10.200 actually got into the tech world in a serious business way. 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:15.280 And he was obviously an extraordinary artist, but as a businessman, 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.160 he used to say, if you don't own your masters, 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.920 your masters own you. And when we see so many 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:24.280 artists today like Jay Z and all these incredible artists 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:26.120 who own their own stuff, they'll all say it was 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.760 because they talk to Prince. And he was an evangelist 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.080 for that for these younger artists. So he was in 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.280 the tech, he was in the ownership. My father grew 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:38.640 up in a village in Africa, in Ghana, no running water, 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:43.160 no electricity, and came to the States, got scholarships, became 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:47.200 a physician, and started buying land back home in Ghana 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:50.320 in the nineties. I know you guys do a lot 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:54.400 of stuff on real estate in the nineties. What's going 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.240 on now in twenty twenty. So my point is, as 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.959 a child, when I was see my dad at work, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:06.320 it had his name, Vincent Aku md Inc on the door. 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:09.880 I never heard my dad talk about a boss. He 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.800 was the boss. My mother was the office manager and 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:14.280 the business operations first. 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.160 So at dinner they were talking business at old times. 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.040 When I was ten, I learned how to balance the 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:26.040 corporate checkbook on the computer and got paid. So I 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:30.200 was on my parents' business payroll doing there at ten 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.200 at ten years old. At this point, are they familiar 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.320 with computers the way you know it? A lot of 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.959 times kids know more about technology than parents. I'm so 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.680 grateful they didn't know anything about computers except how important 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.080 it was. Yeah, and they bought me my first computer when. 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:44.360 I was nine. 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:50.199 How Prince. People talk about Prince a lot, like you said, 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:51.880 as far as being one of the greatest musicians of 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.880 all time. But I'm a huge Nas fan. And I 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.480 remember Nas was on another podcast s Frank Champs, and 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.760 he was talking about when he first met Prince and 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:03.760 years ago, like in ninety nine, and he asked Prince 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:06.079 to do a record with him, and Prince told them. 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.560 He was like, do you own your masters? And now 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:10.320 I said, I own my masters, and he was like, 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.160 when you own your masters? We could have a conversation 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:15.680 and he was like that really inspired. So it's like 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.680 being around Prince. How was he as far as the 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:22.720 business acumen the business side of things? 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.440 Extraordinary? Man. 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:26.400 I remember I had a conversation with him one time 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:28.760 in his office, just the two of us. He said, look, 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:32.280 let me tell you something. He said, I usually end 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.760 the show playing purple rang, he said, within an hour. 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:37.120 I don't care if I'm playing in front of two 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.840 hundred people or if I got sold out at the stadium. 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:43.880 I know how many T shirts were sold. I know 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.040 how much merchandise were sold. I know how many Coca 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:48.480 colas were bought. 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:50.800 We spoke about that when we were talking. 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:52.440 I think it's like a very first episode right when 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:54.960 we talked about how innovative he was when he was 0:14:55.000 --> 0:15:01.080 packaging tickets, merchandise, all these things at the vendings, all 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.240 packaged all together as one thing, and how now that's 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.280 the standard. Twenty years later, people are just realizing, like 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:08.760 what he set forth. 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.160 Exactly I mean you think about subscriptions now Netflix and 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.080 everything else. He created the New Power Generation music club 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:19.120 in the late nineties where you'd pay nine dollars a 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.520 month or whatever it was, and then you get music 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:22.960 and you get merch and everything else. 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:24.000 He created that. 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.160 It's crazy, so before streaming, before it was Apple for 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:28.760 any of that. 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:30.520 So my point in terms of the tech stuff is 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.080 that as a child, when you're raised with a parent 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:37.240 who not only had a business, but more importantly came 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.240 from nothing and created that, and then I got to 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.440 work in it on the business side, and then as 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:47.920 an adult, I'm working with Prince who's so adamant about ownership. 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:50.800 So we were working with an organization that he and 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.760 Van Jones found it called Yes Week Code, teaching African 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.080 American kids in the hood how to code and become 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.600 technology people. I'm not working with Facebook, I'm working with Google. 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:01.760 I'm working with the Obama White House Office of Science 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.600 and Technology. And then we start to put two and 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:05.040 two together. 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:07.359 We said, wait a second. 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:17.560 We went to school with the people who created Google, Yahoo, PayPal, LinkedIn, pallunteer, YouTube. 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:22.600 We went to school with all these guys. They understood 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.280 right like that let's not breeze over there. That's crazy. Literally, 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.720 there's a cat that's in my class nineteen ninety four 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:32.200 who's a co founder of WhatsApp. 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:35.600 Now owned by Facebook, which was. 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:40.640 Sold for nineteen billion dollars. Yeah right, Jerry Yred Yahoo 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:42.640 was two years ahead of me in college in Stanford. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:43.960 Yeah, thirty year reunions. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:48.200 Yeah, oh, I'll see if we can get an invite 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:48.360 to that. 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.640 Honorary brother Stanford alumni is crazy. 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:55.840 So all right. 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.480 So, so you build your relationships working with Prince and 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.920 Van Jones, and you're on the tech side. So at 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:05.720 what point do you to say, Okay, I want to 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:09.040 start my own venture capital firm with other people. I 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:10.440 think this is a good idea to do that. 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:10.879 Yeah. 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:15.280 So basically, we were having a Black alumni reunion and 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.240 it was a summit. It was in twenty fifteen, and 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:18.840 we were in Atlanta, and I was on a panel. 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.399 The numbers had come out around how in Silicon Valley 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.480 less than one percent of the tech employees at these massive, 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:30.800 big tech companies is African American. The less than one 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.960 percent of venture capital going to African Americans. So I 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:35.840 was on a panel and there was a conversation about that, 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:37.800 and you know, you got some of the most successful 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:39.480 black people in the country all sitting in that room, 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:41.959 so there's a lot of anger. But then that turned to, well, 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:44.520 what do we do. We need to put pressure on Google, 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:45.760 we need to get them to hoid on black people. 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:47.240 I was like, hey, wait a second. 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:49.119 If we went to school with the people who created 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:53.200 all this stuff, they had two very simple things. They 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:57.240 had an idea and they had a little bit of 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:03.320 Angel investment money two hundred three hundred five hundred thousand dollars. 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:04.879 And then they were up and running. 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.840 We need to be focusing on doing that for our 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:10.760 black tech entrepreneurs. 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:12.880 So I didn't even say, hey, we need a fund. 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.000 I just kind of put that out there, and literally 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:16.840 a group of us got together and by the next 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.400 day it was like the light bulbs are going off. 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:20.640 And we said, hey, why. 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.679 Don't we pull money together and create a fund so 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.240 that we can start to do these investments in these 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.800 tech entrepreneurs. So that's literally, as literally how it started 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:31.399 Atlanta in twenty fifteen. 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:37.240 Wow. We spoke about Angel Investing with John Henry a 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.040 few months ago and he was talking about how it started. 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:44.120 Now he's a phenomenal, phenomenal young man. 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:46.560 How many how many people are with you when you start? 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:48.920 Yeah, So when we initially started with Black Angel Tech 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:51.879 on us five of us and we literally, you know, 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.320 we did We raised a couple million dollars. We did 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.960 five deals in my fund now Blackstar Fund. I'm still 0:18:57.960 --> 0:18:59.080 in three of those deals. 0:18:59.480 --> 0:18:59.640 OK. 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:00.960 So there's a. 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:04.840 Longevity there in terms of relationships with those founders. But yeah, 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:07.880 it really and it wasn't people who had investing experience. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:09.639 That's one thing I think I love about your show 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.280 is that this is not for people who already know 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.480 all this stuff. It's for people who want to understand 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.240 how it works. If you look at someone like Arlen Hamilton, 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.080 Arln Hamilton does not come out of institutional investing. She 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.199 doesn't have an economics study. Arlen Hamilton the founder of 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:29.840 Backstage Capital. So she African American woman. She has invested 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:34.639 in over a hundred companies of diverse founders and women. 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:41.040 She raised four million dollars four or five years ago. 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:44.240 She was living out of her car. Well, she was 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:46.919 in the music industry and promotions, and she got the 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.600 Silicon Valley and again it's math. She's looking around, going 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:54.160 there's billions of dollars here where the black people. There's 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:56.800 a disconnect. We should do something about that. And she 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.159 got people to believe in her and her vision. Well, 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:00.760 what if we were getting this money, same thing with 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.160 we did with Black Angel Tech Fund into the folks. 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.919 I love what she says. We talked about underrepresented minorities. 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:13.399 She calls us underestimated. It's not underrepresented, right, it's underestimated. 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.240 So my point is that people like Arlen Hamilton, she 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.040 doesn't come out of investing Black Angel Tech Fund, None 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.000 of the founders came out of investing. But we wanted 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.480 to respond to a need and an opportunity. It wasn't 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:27.320 simply that the numbers were rescued so that black people 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:28.840 were not getting the cash. But sat wait a second. 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:33.120 From a business standpoint, that's an incredible opportunity. If Silicon 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:36.520 Valley is not paying attention to our genius and we 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:39.959 can get in early, we can support our genius, and 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.480 we can profit from our genius being successful. 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.040 I think you gave a great analogy. You said you're 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.280 like an A and R like in music just in tech. Right, 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:51.560 you go out, you look for the talent, you say 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:52.399 that's it. 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:54.280 Like, that's something that we're good at. Right. 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:56.359 We know good music when we hear it, and you 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:58.639 know good ideas when you see them, right, Can you 0:20:58.680 --> 0:20:59.760 talk about that a little bit? 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:00.760 Yeah? You know. 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.600 It's like so when people say, you know, wikim, what's 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:06.200 your secret? As an investor said, I'm like an old 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:10.000 school an R person in the music industry. And for 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:12.640 the young heads that that means artists and repertoire. That's 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:14.199 when the cats who would go to the club, they 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:18.560 go to the church, they go to the yeah, and 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:20.920 they would hear the sound. Now, could a lot of 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.560 us sing really well? Absolutely? Could a lot of us play? Absolutely? 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:29.000 But there's something called what the it factor? So when 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:31.840 you think about back in the day with Motown, you 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:36.720 got Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, the Jackson Five, Stevie. 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:37.240 Wonder, Plantations. 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:40.480 Okay, they were all phenomenal singers, but they all had 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:43.840 the it factor. There's something special about certain people that 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:45.240 you just know that. 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:47.359 They were born to be leaders. 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:48.400 No, I say that all the time. 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:51.800 Is that we live in a world now like I 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:57.159 have a son and everybody gets award to participate and 0:21:57.280 --> 0:21:59.960 everybody's like it's made just feel everybody's equal. 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:00.880 Now you're singing my song. 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.399 Now, everybody's not equal. 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:06.280 There's some people that's that's made to excel others, and 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:09.159 that's okay because some people like Lebron James might not 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:12.320 be the best piano player, right, but as far as basketball, 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:15.760 he's he was built to excel. He still had to 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:17.879 put the work in. But you could have worked just 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:19.840 as hard as Lebron. You're not going to be Lebron. 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:22.800 And it's the same thing with business people. It's like 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:24.520 even on the podcast, like we've had people on the 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:27.480 podcast before and be like, he's special or she's special. 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:30.480 Just has an it factor, right, and it's like you 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:32.080 don't you can't really put your finger. 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:33.800 On it, but you know it. 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:36.720 The people know it. They resonate toward and they just 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:37.720 they just have it. 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:39.280 And the person sitting here knows it too. 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:40.880 Like when they walk in and we talk as soon 0:22:40.920 --> 0:22:43.040 as like we have conversations after what they leave, it's 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:45.200 like he was he's special, she's special. 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:46.400 You can feel it. That's the thing. 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:48.719 So then now let's look at it in the context 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:50.760 of wait a second, if what we're all saying is true, 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:53.439 how is it that you have less than one percent 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:57.040 of the venture capital going to African Americans. Right, That's 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:00.480 why I was saying that there's the opportunity. Greatest things 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:02.680 I ever learned from one of my mentors, he said, 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:05.240 a small mind focus is on the problem. Big mind 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:08.880 focuses on the solution. A genius mind sees the opportunity 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:14.160 that lies in the problem. Right, So that's how I functions. Wait, wait, 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:16.919 less than one percent. We know our genius, We know 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:19.280 our talent when we see it. So you're telling me, 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:21.800 I'll give you example. Mary spiel who's actually in town. 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:24.399 She's got a virtual reality company and she's doing virtual 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:27.840 reality content for the halftime show at the Super Bowl. 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:31.560 So she has a company called seek Vr. Okay, so 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:34.080 let me just give you the background. Here's an African 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:37.520 woman born New York, raised in Ghana. Dual degree, master's 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:41.040 degree in from Georgia Tech and Electrical Engineering and Computer science. 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:44.320 Seven year veteran of the United States Air Force, had 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:47.480 a satellite communications. Oh and by the way, she invented 0:23:47.480 --> 0:23:50.920 the digital cinema system for Boeing, which bounces the movie 0:23:50.960 --> 0:23:52.840 signal off of satellite. 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:54.960 To the movie theater big time. 0:23:55.600 --> 0:23:58.119 So you meet this woman who's got a VR company 0:23:58.160 --> 0:23:59.520 and you find out that she got a deal with 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:02.800 Universe Soul Music and she beat out Oculus to get 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:06.800 that deal. Does that sound you know what I mean? 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:09.679 That's that's Dana Ross in the tech world exactly. Exactly 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:12.520 in the tech world. That's who you invested, not just 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:16.760 the money, the time, the relationships, the business coaching. So 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:19.160 we've got that level of talent and my belief, whether 0:24:19.200 --> 0:24:23.000 it's it's John Henry and Harlem Capital, Plexo Capital Precursor, 0:24:24.080 --> 0:24:27.600 Arlend with Backstage Capital, Blackstar Fund, that we are all 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:30.080 going to be turning the industry on its head and 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:32.560 in the next three to five years because we knew 0:24:32.600 --> 0:24:35.119 where the talent was that nobody else was paying attention to, 0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:38.800 and we invested early, and when as those companies grow 0:24:38.880 --> 0:24:41.719 and have significant exits, everybody's going to come and look 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:45.080 at us as geniuses. Look, weren't geniuses. We paid attention 0:24:45.359 --> 0:24:47.560 to the people you were not paying attention to. We 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:50.000 invested in the people you were overlooking. 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:52.040 The same dudes. You gave nothing. I made something. 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:52.639 What I do? 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:55.640 That's it? So all right. 0:24:55.680 --> 0:24:57.520 In the next in the next segment, we're going to 0:24:57.600 --> 0:24:59.800 go through the process as far as you know, he says, 0:24:59.800 --> 0:25:02.760 the part process and like your day to day and 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:06.639 then some mindset opportunities that you that you coach people 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:08.959 on as well. So yeah, we're gonna go into that next. 0:25:09.200 --> 0:25:11.520 All right, So you told us off camera that there's 0:25:11.520 --> 0:25:14.480 really three phases of your VC, and what you do 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:18.159 with Black Star Fund is, you know, you raise money, 0:25:18.200 --> 0:25:22.240 you find find founders. You raise money, you find founders, 0:25:22.840 --> 0:25:25.679 and you help them be successful. So the interesting thing 0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:28.120 for me is that you raise money before you find 0:25:28.119 --> 0:25:29.840 the founder the founders of the people that you're giving 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:32.840 money to or you're investing money with. But you're raising 0:25:32.880 --> 0:25:36.600 money before you actually have the people in play, and 0:25:36.640 --> 0:25:39.400 then you're not only just giving them money, but you're 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:42.280 coaching them. Because I always look at it like it's 0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:45.960 like talent, right, we can't where I like to talk 0:25:46.000 --> 0:25:48.440 in sports and entertainment metaphors a lot because we understand 0:25:48.480 --> 0:25:52.959 that we as a culture, but world culture, we understand that, right. 0:25:53.320 --> 0:25:55.520 So it's like me, I used to play sports. So 0:25:56.160 --> 0:25:58.280 you see it's called the dominant rough Like you see 0:25:58.280 --> 0:26:02.359 somebody like they might be phenomenal player, basketball player, but 0:26:02.480 --> 0:26:05.160 they're not polished. They need work they need to coach, 0:26:05.200 --> 0:26:06.879 they need a trainer, they need somebody. But they already 0:26:06.920 --> 0:26:09.680 have potential, they have raw potential, but they're gonna get 0:26:09.680 --> 0:26:12.080 demolage if they just go to the league. They have to, 0:26:12.119 --> 0:26:13.960 they have to. They gotta practice, right, they gotta they 0:26:13.960 --> 0:26:16.840 gotta refine. Same thing with business. Somebody could be the 0:26:16.840 --> 0:26:21.359 most talented entrepreneur and be the most elegant speaker and 0:26:21.920 --> 0:26:24.960 powerful networker and just have a presence, but that still 0:26:25.000 --> 0:26:26.720 might not make them ready for the big league. 0:26:26.840 --> 0:26:28.960 Credit as you're saying that, the first thing that came 0:26:28.960 --> 0:26:31.879 out of mind were talking team was when Puff found it. 0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:35.280 It was like this gritty dude off the corner becomes 0:26:35.359 --> 0:26:35.880 this guy who. 0:26:35.840 --> 0:26:37.720 Knows where his besogy. He's an icon because of it. 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:40.480 He found a dirt, he shined it up, and now 0:26:40.520 --> 0:26:41.399 he's an icon forever. 0:26:41.720 --> 0:26:43.440 Yeah, I mean that happens. But there's a bunch of 0:26:43.480 --> 0:26:46.520 people that just you know, everybody needs some level of coaching. 0:26:46.840 --> 0:26:49.520 Whether it's like nah said, large professor told him not 0:26:49.600 --> 0:26:52.720 to pop his p's and the poof like you don't 0:26:52.760 --> 0:26:54.760 think about that, but it's like little stuff like that. 0:26:54.920 --> 0:26:57.119 It's like you you you actually have talent, but you 0:26:57.240 --> 0:26:59.440 still need to be refined. So can you talk about 0:26:59.480 --> 0:27:03.359 that as far as the process, your process being the 0:27:03.440 --> 0:27:07.679 CEO of a VC fund and actually working with the entrepreneurs, 0:27:07.760 --> 0:27:10.760 not just like one hundred miles away, just do your 0:27:10.800 --> 0:27:11.159 own thing. 0:27:11.240 --> 0:27:12.159 There's the money, go ahead. 0:27:12.359 --> 0:27:15.520 Yeah, So let me say this first of all, there's 0:27:15.560 --> 0:27:18.960 a debate actually within our investment community where people even 0:27:19.000 --> 0:27:21.720 within African American investors around spending a lot of time 0:27:21.800 --> 0:27:25.000 with the entrepreneurs, and some people's philosophy is, but if 0:27:25.040 --> 0:27:27.320 we decided to make a deal with you, we're giving 0:27:27.359 --> 0:27:30.000 you the capital and you figure it out. We'll make 0:27:30.040 --> 0:27:31.639 some phone calls for you, but we're not here to 0:27:31.680 --> 0:27:34.640 hold your hand through the process. The way that VC 0:27:34.800 --> 0:27:38.120 normally works, the philosophy is you invest in ten companies, 0:27:39.840 --> 0:27:43.200 seven of them will fail, two of them will do okay, 0:27:43.800 --> 0:27:45.800 and one of them will be a unicorn and make 0:27:45.840 --> 0:27:48.280 everybody all the money. So what they do is they 0:27:48.440 --> 0:27:52.000 wait to see who pulls ahead, and then the bottom 0:27:52.080 --> 0:27:54.320 seven they kind of abandon most of the time. 0:27:55.160 --> 0:27:57.639 Could we afford to do that with African American tech founders? 0:27:57.720 --> 0:28:02.280 Absolutely not? Okay, absolutely that what are we talking about? Right? 0:28:02.359 --> 0:28:06.040 That just makes no sense. We can't do that ten 0:28:06.080 --> 0:28:08.000 percent to talk about ten companies exactly. 0:28:08.160 --> 0:28:09.800 So when you talk about you know, we're looking for 0:28:09.840 --> 0:28:11.720 the krem de la creme de la creme, the top 0:28:11.760 --> 0:28:13.520 of the top of the top, and so a lot 0:28:13.560 --> 0:28:15.399 of times you know even how we got connected. 0:28:15.400 --> 0:28:18.359 You had one of our companies on EUYL the Win 0:28:18.440 --> 0:28:21.240 Win company. It stands on. 0:28:22.720 --> 0:28:29.320 Phenomenal guy, the true talented tech developer. True he was 0:28:29.359 --> 0:28:32.040 a two time All American at Duke with a full 0:28:32.160 --> 0:28:36.760 ride and made it to the NFL. The work ethic 0:28:37.359 --> 0:28:40.520 of an individual like that, you put that person in 0:28:40.640 --> 0:28:44.200 tech and business, you're dealing with it a force you 0:28:44.240 --> 0:28:46.240 can't even imagine, you see what I mean? So that, 0:28:47.240 --> 0:28:50.680 but everybody has reshards to your point, everybody has areas 0:28:50.720 --> 0:28:52.920 that they need help with. Some of it might be 0:28:53.080 --> 0:28:56.080 to be polished and refined in business. But what I 0:28:56.240 --> 0:28:58.200 find that I think the most value that I bring, 0:28:58.440 --> 0:28:59.920 and this is something I think that could help all 0:29:00.120 --> 0:29:03.280 of your listeners, is that I say, the wider and 0:29:03.320 --> 0:29:08.320 deeper your relationships are, the easier your life is. And 0:29:08.360 --> 0:29:11.640 it translates to business, The wider and deeper your relationships 0:29:11.680 --> 0:29:15.360 are the easier your businesses. So when I invest in 0:29:15.440 --> 0:29:18.560 a company and I can leverage my relationships to help 0:29:18.640 --> 0:29:21.200 them grow. It makes a huge difference we invest in. 0:29:21.280 --> 0:29:22.720 I'll give you an example. We invest in a company. 0:29:23.320 --> 0:29:27.880 One of my investors made one phone call. That company 0:29:28.000 --> 0:29:31.200 was able to get their product into the top grocery 0:29:31.280 --> 0:29:33.280 store in northern California. 0:29:33.840 --> 0:29:34.680 Just from the resources. 0:29:34.720 --> 0:29:36.560 That's you Okay, you see what I mean. 0:29:36.840 --> 0:29:39.960 It wasn't heavy lifting, but because I had that relationship 0:29:40.040 --> 0:29:43.120 and I could leverage that relationship for my founder that 0:29:43.240 --> 0:29:46.560 I invested in, she was able to have a breakthrough in. 0:29:46.560 --> 0:29:48.600 The California market. You see what I mean. 0:29:49.000 --> 0:29:50.880 So it's not just the coaching, like we're helping you 0:29:50.960 --> 0:29:52.959 with mindset and we'll get into some of that hopefully too, 0:29:54.320 --> 0:29:58.040 but it's how can I act as almost your VP 0:29:58.200 --> 0:30:01.920 of business development? How can I get you in rooms 0:30:02.040 --> 0:30:04.320 and how can I connect you with people to help 0:30:04.400 --> 0:30:06.840 you to grow your business? And then sometimes you know, 0:30:06.920 --> 0:30:09.760 we do what I call CEO coaching. It's the behind 0:30:09.800 --> 0:30:12.440 closed door. Its tough conversations where we got to look 0:30:12.440 --> 0:30:14.600 in the mirror, We got to do an assessment. Where 0:30:14.600 --> 0:30:17.040 are your blocks, how are you getting in your own way? 0:30:17.880 --> 0:30:20.360 What story are you telling yourself? That's not serving you 0:30:20.560 --> 0:30:22.560 or your company. You see what I mean? 0:30:22.840 --> 0:30:27.120 So what is some CEO coaching that you do or 0:30:27.480 --> 0:30:29.040 that you know, because, like I said, a lot of 0:30:29.080 --> 0:30:31.720 times people you start a business, there's no roadmap to 0:30:31.800 --> 0:30:35.680 be successful, and coaching is extremely important, right, Like even 0:30:35.840 --> 0:30:39.280 Lebron reportedly spends a million dollars on his body where 0:30:39.280 --> 0:30:42.040 he has like massage therapists and trainers and things of 0:30:42.040 --> 0:30:44.440 that nature. And it's like business, this is important too, 0:30:44.640 --> 0:30:48.360 business podcast is that top level business people spend money 0:30:48.480 --> 0:30:51.360 on coaches. That's right, because they want to improve, whether 0:30:51.400 --> 0:30:53.160 it's a variety of different things that they can improve 0:30:53.240 --> 0:30:55.800 and become more efficient, things of that nature. And so 0:30:56.040 --> 0:30:59.480 as far as like CEO coaching, what is that? What 0:30:59.640 --> 0:31:02.160 does that look like from your standpoint? 0:31:02.360 --> 0:31:04.960 That's a great, great question. So there's not for me, 0:31:05.520 --> 0:31:07.520 there's not a cookie cutter formula. It's like you got 0:31:07.640 --> 0:31:10.400 to assess the person in front of you. Where are 0:31:10.400 --> 0:31:13.200 their strengths, where are their weaknesses? And you hear me 0:31:13.360 --> 0:31:17.080 use this word, where are their blocks? And a block 0:31:17.160 --> 0:31:19.360 is a mental idea that you have in your head 0:31:19.440 --> 0:31:23.200 that's preventing you from moving forward, and oftentimes it's subconscious. 0:31:24.080 --> 0:31:26.239 So how do you find out where those blocks are. 0:31:26.440 --> 0:31:29.880 It's based on output. I'm looking at what the entrepreneur 0:31:30.000 --> 0:31:32.600 is doing, and I'm looking at the output, and in 0:31:32.720 --> 0:31:35.000 certain areas I'm not seeing good results. 0:31:35.640 --> 0:31:37.280 And then I'm asking them, what is it that you want? 0:31:37.880 --> 0:31:38.200 I want this? 0:31:38.840 --> 0:31:41.040 It's okay, Well, I'm looking at six months of activity. 0:31:41.080 --> 0:31:42.400 I'm not seeing a lot of the thing that you 0:31:42.480 --> 0:31:45.000 say that you want. So we have to go into 0:31:45.080 --> 0:31:46.840 why is that now? Some of it is because they 0:31:46.880 --> 0:31:49.240 haven't designed a plan to be able to get there well, 0:31:49.600 --> 0:31:51.800 but a lot of times there's a block, and it's 0:31:51.840 --> 0:31:53.920 almost like be honestly, it's almost like being a psychologist 0:31:54.360 --> 0:31:55.920 where you got to go in and start to figure 0:31:55.960 --> 0:31:58.239 out what is preventing you from doing what you need 0:31:58.320 --> 0:32:02.000 to do, and then you forty seven. So I've seen 0:32:02.040 --> 0:32:04.400 a lot. I've had some great successes. I've had some 0:32:04.640 --> 0:32:05.560 painful failures. 0:32:06.120 --> 0:32:07.720 That's exactly where I was going because I'm thinking, like, 0:32:07.800 --> 0:32:11.160 this sounds very well organized, very well planned. In order 0:32:11.160 --> 0:32:13.280 to coach, sometimes you had to have made some mistakes 0:32:13.360 --> 0:32:15.880 that you know that play doesn't work, that's the thing. 0:32:16.000 --> 0:32:18.360 So what are some of the mistakes that you've made 0:32:18.360 --> 0:32:20.160 along the way. So I'll give an example. I see 0:32:20.200 --> 0:32:20.560 this a lot. 0:32:20.680 --> 0:32:24.520 Actually, when you're building a team as a leader, there's 0:32:24.560 --> 0:32:28.320 a mistake that people make where they build a team 0:32:28.360 --> 0:32:31.000 based on people who look up to them and who 0:32:31.040 --> 0:32:33.600 want to follow them. And part of it is an 0:32:33.600 --> 0:32:37.120 ego thing. Right, So I'm the CEO and founder. You're 0:32:37.160 --> 0:32:39.600 working for me. Maybe you haven't had this level of 0:32:39.600 --> 0:32:41.720 success that I've had, and you just want to be down. 0:32:42.320 --> 0:32:45.000 I'm bringing you on same thing. So what these guys 0:32:45.080 --> 0:32:46.560 do a lot of times they'll build a team of 0:32:46.640 --> 0:32:50.000 people who are kind of not at their level and 0:32:50.160 --> 0:32:53.479 look up to them and kind of idolize them. Huge mistake. 0:32:53.760 --> 0:32:57.160 I made that mistake. When you're in business, you want 0:32:57.160 --> 0:32:59.240 to build a team. And I tell peoples all the time, 0:32:59.440 --> 0:33:01.560 when you look on the table your management team, you 0:33:01.600 --> 0:33:04.320 should be in awe of the people on your team. 0:33:05.200 --> 0:33:08.960 You should literally be in awe of them. Get this, 0:33:09.600 --> 0:33:12.040 howe how is it possible that you're sitting at the 0:33:12.040 --> 0:33:14.840 table actually building this company. See, that's a mindset shift, 0:33:15.080 --> 0:33:17.320 and again sometimes it's ego. Sometimes people don't know better. 0:33:17.880 --> 0:33:20.520 The problem with the first way is that that team 0:33:20.600 --> 0:33:23.000 is always looking for you to make all the decisions 0:33:23.640 --> 0:33:26.680 and they and they're not really solving problems. Okay, so 0:33:26.800 --> 0:33:28.960 you need people who are better than you to do 0:33:29.080 --> 0:33:31.280 the things that you need to do to build your business. 0:33:31.280 --> 0:33:33.120 Steve Jobs was a genius at that and you probably 0:33:33.120 --> 0:33:35.080 have seen that meme. He said, you know, we hire 0:33:35.120 --> 0:33:36.800 people who are smarter than us to tell us what 0:33:36.920 --> 0:33:39.320 to do, right, not the other way around. 0:33:39.440 --> 0:33:39.560 Right. 0:33:39.800 --> 0:33:42.120 So that's that's a problem that I see. If you 0:33:42.200 --> 0:33:43.560 want to get in the nitty gritty in terms of 0:33:43.640 --> 0:33:46.600 cash flow management. One of the folks, one of the 0:33:46.760 --> 0:33:48.720 one of the things I think are our folks have 0:33:48.800 --> 0:33:52.320 a challenge with is that when money comes in, they'll 0:33:52.360 --> 0:33:54.240 operate the business kind of how they operate it on 0:33:54.320 --> 0:33:59.360 their life, okay, without having a budget, without having strict 0:33:59.680 --> 0:34:01.080 controls of that money. 0:34:01.840 --> 0:34:03.480 And so what I do with the entrepreneur is, look, 0:34:03.520 --> 0:34:05.560 we have to have the budget set with the X amount. 0:34:06.680 --> 0:34:07.520 I go over that with them. 0:34:07.560 --> 0:34:08.719 On some of the companies, I'm on the board, so 0:34:08.760 --> 0:34:10.560 it's a little easier because I can do board approvals 0:34:10.600 --> 0:34:13.320 of the budget. But we make sure that the cash 0:34:13.440 --> 0:34:17.360 is accounted for every week. If something comes up and 0:34:17.440 --> 0:34:19.080 we need to make a shift, we need to have 0:34:19.200 --> 0:34:22.520 a board decision to make a shift in the expenditures. 0:34:22.560 --> 0:34:25.719 But we've got spreadsheets to see where everything is. I've 0:34:25.719 --> 0:34:27.840 seen so many companies that are raised five hundred thousand 0:34:27.840 --> 0:34:32.200 dollars a million dollars. Ten months later, money's gone and 0:34:32.280 --> 0:34:35.160 the company is gone. Was it because their burn rate 0:34:35.280 --> 0:34:37.800 was so high? No, because they didn't have good financial 0:34:37.840 --> 0:34:40.200 systems in place, or they were saying, well, we don't 0:34:40.200 --> 0:34:41.800 need a CFO, we can't afford a CFO. 0:34:42.080 --> 0:34:43.920 Well, you don't need to hire a CFO. 0:34:44.120 --> 0:34:48.040 You need to have a fractional CFO, somebody that you 0:34:48.080 --> 0:34:50.600 can hire ten hours a month that will help to 0:34:50.680 --> 0:34:52.120 make sure all the financial. 0:34:51.760 --> 0:34:52.479 Things are in place. 0:34:52.640 --> 0:34:53.600 A fractional CFO. 0:34:53.719 --> 0:34:55.080 Yeah, so this is a new thing to be helpful 0:34:55.080 --> 0:34:56.239 your listener. Yes, I've heard of it. 0:34:56.320 --> 0:34:59.759 We call it fractional c suite. So we're starting off. 0:35:00.040 --> 0:35:02.960 We can't hire necessarily a chief marketing officer CMO, a 0:35:03.080 --> 0:35:04.840 chief financial officer CFO. 0:35:05.160 --> 0:35:05.719 We don't have to. 0:35:06.239 --> 0:35:09.160 There's now people who have positioned themselves to be fractional 0:35:09.800 --> 0:35:13.200 C level managers. I'll give you ten hours a month 0:35:13.719 --> 0:35:16.880 to be your chief marketing officer, right because you're just 0:35:16.920 --> 0:35:20.720 getting started, and so that's a great bit earners. 0:35:20.760 --> 0:35:21.120 What's up. 0:35:21.239 --> 0:35:23.640 You ever walk into a small business and everything just 0:35:23.880 --> 0:35:27.000 works like The checkout is fast, the seats are digital, 0:35:27.560 --> 0:35:30.520 tipping is a breeze, and you're out the door before 0:35:30.560 --> 0:35:34.680 the line even builds. Odds are they're using Square. 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Hiring 0:38:07.440 --> 0:38:08.960 Indeed is all you need. 0:38:09.400 --> 0:38:10.879 Just for people to be in because they can work 0:38:10.920 --> 0:38:13.600 for five sixty seven companies and get paid for those 0:38:13.640 --> 0:38:16.000 companies doing fractional work in the week. 0:38:16.080 --> 0:38:16.480 It's great. 0:38:16.520 --> 0:38:18.719 It's great, right, and it's great for the company because 0:38:18.719 --> 0:38:21.680 you're getting high level professional services but you're not paying 0:38:21.719 --> 0:38:22.840 out the nose to be able to get that. 0:38:22.960 --> 0:38:27.360 Yeah, it's like a consultant or MVP most viable product. 0:38:27.400 --> 0:38:29.200 When we say a lot on the podcast, it's like 0:38:29.280 --> 0:38:31.120 you have to work with the resources that's available to you. 0:38:31.560 --> 0:38:33.840 So you might not have one hundred and fifty thousand 0:38:33.840 --> 0:38:36.840 dollars to pay somebody full time, but you might have 0:38:36.960 --> 0:38:39.640 twenty thousand that you can break. And like you said, 0:38:39.680 --> 0:38:41.560 it's kind of a win win because it's like you're 0:38:41.600 --> 0:38:46.719 still getting some level of help and that person might 0:38:46.840 --> 0:38:50.319 get twenty thousand from ten different people. Now that's two 0:38:50.440 --> 0:38:53.080 hundred thousand as opposed to just the one fifty that 0:38:53.120 --> 0:38:54.600 they were going to get. But they got to focus 0:38:54.680 --> 0:38:56.080 all of their time just on one company. 0:38:56.160 --> 0:38:57.759 That's right, absolutely. And there's one other thing I want 0:38:57.760 --> 0:39:00.359 to say quickly about some of the coaching. It's life style. 0:39:00.920 --> 0:39:02.680 One of our companies you've invested in a great friend 0:39:02.719 --> 0:39:05.879 of mine, Don Dixon, and she has a company called 0:39:05.960 --> 0:39:10.919 Popcom and it's an incredible you know, AI interactive vending 0:39:11.000 --> 0:39:14.200 machine software system that she's created. And you know, she 0:39:14.239 --> 0:39:17.440 always talks about, especially to younger entrepreneurs in the early twenties, 0:39:17.800 --> 0:39:21.120 this idea that you're grinding, you know, ninety one hundred 0:39:21.160 --> 0:39:24.399 hours a week and that somehow we romanticize that that's 0:39:24.440 --> 0:39:27.319 how you're supposed to be successful. That is a way 0:39:27.680 --> 0:39:30.600 to have an imbalanced life, and that is a way 0:39:30.640 --> 0:39:33.840 to burn out. And so I really work with my 0:39:34.000 --> 0:39:37.600 founders in terms of their life balance. Me personally, I 0:39:37.640 --> 0:39:41.000 don't work on Sundays. I will not work on Sundays. 0:39:41.880 --> 0:39:44.960 I only started doing that in twenty nineteen, you see 0:39:44.960 --> 0:39:46.600 what I mean. So I don't want to see my 0:39:46.680 --> 0:39:48.480 founders like as an investor, I don't want to hear 0:39:48.600 --> 0:39:49.320 oh yeah, kwami. 0:39:49.360 --> 0:39:50.040 Man. We grind it out. 0:39:50.080 --> 0:39:50.160 Man. 0:39:50.160 --> 0:39:51.839 We put a one hundred hour week. I had three 0:39:51.920 --> 0:39:52.640 nights with no sleep. 0:39:52.640 --> 0:39:55.759 I don't want to hear that. I want to know. 0:39:56.360 --> 0:39:57.920 Like Mike Brown, I'll just throw his stuff out. 0:39:57.960 --> 0:39:59.239 I'll talk. I'll call Mike, I say hey, can we 0:39:59.239 --> 0:40:00.880 do a meeting. It's like can my son in taekwondo? 0:40:02.440 --> 0:40:05.719 I don't say, well, can you step outside? Because I've 0:40:05.760 --> 0:40:09.080 taken my son when he was five to taekwondo? Right, 0:40:09.200 --> 0:40:12.360 And it's so important that as a founder, as an 0:40:12.360 --> 0:40:15.160 investor with the founder, I'm expecting you to work hard. 0:40:15.840 --> 0:40:18.480 I'm not expecting you to burn yourself out. I'm not 0:40:18.600 --> 0:40:21.680 expecting you to have your life out of balance because 0:40:22.560 --> 0:40:24.520 I care about you as a human being first and foremost. 0:40:24.840 --> 0:40:29.239 But second, it's painfully inefficient. It's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. 0:40:29.280 --> 0:40:30.960 I need you to be here for the long haul, 0:40:31.200 --> 0:40:32.280 and I need you to bring. 0:40:32.239 --> 0:40:34.600 To the best of your abilities, the best of you, 0:40:35.160 --> 0:40:39.040 and then also to play devil's advocate. I think there's 0:40:39.040 --> 0:40:41.920 different systems for different people because, like we talked about sports, 0:40:42.680 --> 0:40:45.960 there's the Belichick way right, Patriots way, but it's really 0:40:45.960 --> 0:40:50.400 Belichick's way and he's a much different coach than Phil Jackson. 0:40:51.200 --> 0:40:55.640 He's a much different coach than Andy Reid. Right with Belichick, 0:40:56.880 --> 0:40:59.520 it's no alternative. He's about t trying to get rid 0:40:59.520 --> 0:41:00.799 of Tom Brady. You don't care. 0:41:00.920 --> 0:41:01.600 This is my way. 0:41:01.760 --> 0:41:03.879 And people say they hate playing for the everybody that's 0:41:03.880 --> 0:41:06.360 played for the Patriots city that's not on the Patriots anymore. 0:41:06.680 --> 0:41:10.080 So they hated it, but they win. They win, right, 0:41:10.200 --> 0:41:15.040 It's like sometimes the win and it's it's hard for 0:41:15.120 --> 0:41:17.520 people to fully understand that too, because it's like it's 0:41:17.600 --> 0:41:19.920 it's it's kind of disy. I think businesses like sports 0:41:19.960 --> 0:41:22.800 where it's like sometimes you go to extra mind and 0:41:22.920 --> 0:41:26.560 every everybody, everybody's not balanced. 0:41:27.120 --> 0:41:29.600 So let me let me expound on that, because, believe 0:41:29.600 --> 0:41:32.120 it or not, I agree with you one hundred percent, 0:41:32.520 --> 0:41:34.200 and I'm glad you said that because I need to 0:41:34.280 --> 0:41:37.600 qualify what I said because it goes to your point 0:41:37.600 --> 0:41:40.160 about it. It's not sustainable. I want to see it 0:41:40.239 --> 0:41:43.640 being seasons. Okay, there's a season to go in the 0:41:43.760 --> 0:41:46.759 overdrive and then there's a season to pull back, and 0:41:46.840 --> 0:41:48.800 the Bible says it's time to place for everything. So 0:41:48.880 --> 0:41:50.920 what I'm not saying as a startup founder, you should 0:41:51.200 --> 0:41:54.200 comfortably just do for hours a week, clock out at 0:41:54.239 --> 0:41:56.920 five o'clock on Friday. I don't think about working all weekend. 0:41:57.040 --> 0:42:02.160 I've got yoga tonight. No, no, right, But this idea 0:42:02.280 --> 0:42:04.600 that like I'm not doing, I'm not a good founder 0:42:04.640 --> 0:42:07.160 of a startup if I'm not working ninety hours a week, 0:42:07.360 --> 0:42:12.000 never take a break, always grind and always reading. That mindset. See, 0:42:12.120 --> 0:42:15.680 that's different than the athlete that is doing waking up 0:42:15.680 --> 0:42:18.880 at four in the morning every day. It's even that 0:42:19.000 --> 0:42:21.640 athlete still takes their family on vacation, you see what 0:42:21.640 --> 0:42:25.080 I mean? Even that athlete reads books instead of playing. Right. 0:42:25.560 --> 0:42:29.680 So there's grind season, there's recovery season, there's we're going 0:42:29.719 --> 0:42:32.200 to pull out all the stops, and then this we're 0:42:32.239 --> 0:42:36.080 gonna reflect. Steve Jobs one of the most innovative entrepreneurs 0:42:36.200 --> 0:42:40.640 on the planet earth, Bill Gates, the minor standing I 0:42:40.719 --> 0:42:41.759 just start documenting on him. 0:42:41.800 --> 0:42:42.440 He still does it. 0:42:44.239 --> 0:42:48.239 They read for over an hour a day. Now, how 0:42:48.320 --> 0:42:50.960 in the world would you be Bill Gates with networth 0:42:51.000 --> 0:42:54.839 of thirty plus billion dollars, with all the global responsibilities 0:42:54.880 --> 0:42:58.359 he has, and he reads an hour day. Steve Jobs 0:42:58.400 --> 0:43:02.399 would walk for an hour a day, not take phone calls. 0:43:02.960 --> 0:43:05.440 Now you have steve jobs, rest and soul. Why do 0:43:05.520 --> 0:43:06.200 you do that? He said? 0:43:06.200 --> 0:43:09.440 Because that's where I can think, and that's where I 0:43:09.520 --> 0:43:10.560 come up with ideas. 0:43:11.440 --> 0:43:11.880 You know what I mean? 0:43:11.960 --> 0:43:15.040 You have to allocate this time. Oh, you definitely will 0:43:15.080 --> 0:43:17.840 burn out. That's like Shoy's coming from the Bisweld educational 0:43:17.920 --> 0:43:19.600 I see it all the time. Like I have teachers 0:43:19.640 --> 0:43:21.560 that are thirty and forty and they're like, I can't 0:43:21.600 --> 0:43:22.240 do this anymore. 0:43:22.360 --> 0:43:24.080 Well, I'm like, well, what are you gonna do? I 0:43:24.160 --> 0:43:24.440 don't know. 0:43:24.760 --> 0:43:27.080 I'm like, well, then you're gonna be doing this right. 0:43:27.200 --> 0:43:29.399 Like it's like most teachers think that they're gonna work 0:43:29.480 --> 0:43:32.319 till the retirement age fifty five fifty sevens for something, 0:43:32.640 --> 0:43:33.960 and they're like, all right, it's great, But I'm like, 0:43:34.000 --> 0:43:36.200 you're thirty now, you're twenty seven years away. 0:43:36.640 --> 0:43:38.040 What are you gonna do if you burnt out now? 0:43:38.120 --> 0:43:40.239 And it's like they haven't allocated the time or the 0:43:40.320 --> 0:43:41.799 resources to look at anything else. 0:43:42.040 --> 0:43:42.760 That's so powerful. 0:43:42.960 --> 0:43:48.800 Yeah, So as far as raising money, right, what's the 0:43:48.880 --> 0:43:52.960 process as far as that is concerned for you personally? 0:43:53.160 --> 0:43:56.240 Like you guys, now, do you tap into your network 0:43:57.200 --> 0:43:59.520 that you've built up over the years. There's alumni association, 0:43:59.600 --> 0:44:01.960 it's just random people that you come in contact with. 0:44:02.280 --> 0:44:03.520 Do you have email marketing? 0:44:03.600 --> 0:44:03.640 Like? 0:44:03.719 --> 0:44:05.480 How do you we calling this stand for the lum 0:44:06.719 --> 0:44:08.640 How do you raise money for you for these businesses 0:44:08.719 --> 0:44:09.480 that you're giving money to. 0:44:09.920 --> 0:44:12.120 Yeah, so there's two sides of it. 0:44:12.800 --> 0:44:14.799 Let's talk about on the fund side and then also 0:44:14.880 --> 0:44:16.719 talk about how I help some of the companies to 0:44:16.840 --> 0:44:20.239 raise money themselves right on the fun side. It goes 0:44:20.280 --> 0:44:22.320 back to what I said, the wider and deeper the 0:44:22.360 --> 0:44:25.960 relationships you have our the easier your life is easier 0:44:25.960 --> 0:44:29.960 your businesses. And remember I said success by association. So 0:44:30.080 --> 0:44:33.000 let's say I've got a good relationship with somebody's business guy. 0:44:33.040 --> 0:44:35.319 It knows me, trusts me, likes me, admires my work. 0:44:35.480 --> 0:44:36.920 Talk to him, he says, calling out, man, I. 0:44:36.960 --> 0:44:37.560 Want to invest. 0:44:38.280 --> 0:44:39.800 I don't just say hey, thank you so much for that. 0:44:39.800 --> 0:44:41.799 I really appreciate it, and then try to find other people. 0:44:42.400 --> 0:44:45.320 Then we sit down, who else in your network do 0:44:45.400 --> 0:44:46.520 you think would be interested in this? 0:44:47.880 --> 0:44:48.040 Right? 0:44:48.440 --> 0:44:50.040 So, now when we go and meet with that person, 0:44:51.120 --> 0:44:53.160 these are people he's done deals with, These are people 0:44:53.239 --> 0:44:55.200 she's done deals with. So they know them, they like them, 0:44:55.239 --> 0:44:57.359 they trust them, and a lot of times they've made 0:44:57.400 --> 0:45:00.399 money together. So now it's not just what, hey, here's 0:45:00.400 --> 0:45:01.239 this guy you don't know. 0:45:01.880 --> 0:45:02.600 Do you want to do this? 0:45:03.000 --> 0:45:05.560 It's hey, man, I just get in this deal. You 0:45:05.640 --> 0:45:07.680 gotta see this, you gotta meet this guy. I'm in 0:45:08.239 --> 0:45:10.200 and I want to bring you in with me. So 0:45:10.400 --> 0:45:14.719 so much of the deal is done before the meeting 0:45:15.040 --> 0:45:18.120 simply because again it's success by association. So that's really 0:45:18.200 --> 0:45:20.919 my strategy on the fundraise. And the cool thing about 0:45:20.920 --> 0:45:24.080 that too, is that you meet extraordinary people doing amazing things. 0:45:24.160 --> 0:45:27.520 Like I'm in town to help my two companies. Those 0:45:27.560 --> 0:45:32.239 events were Thursday and tomorrow. I planned my trip to 0:45:32.320 --> 0:45:35.200 leave on Tuesday. Why because I knew I was going 0:45:35.239 --> 0:45:38.400 to be meeting people, and I got some business partners 0:45:38.440 --> 0:45:40.040 down here that I said, I'm coming for a week. 0:45:40.320 --> 0:45:42.560 Ta Kama will get you some meetings so we can 0:45:42.640 --> 0:45:43.799 help you to raise some money down here. 0:45:44.239 --> 0:45:46.200 You see what I mean, And you never know what 0:45:46.239 --> 0:45:48.719 can happen, like I I was just saying earlier, like 0:45:48.840 --> 0:45:50.680 somebody who was asked me, like you lest, I'm not 0:45:50.800 --> 0:45:54.840 leaving leave Miami until I'm supposed to leave because already 0:45:54.840 --> 0:45:55.600 I know it's in New York. 0:45:56.719 --> 0:45:57.920 I'm in New York all year. 0:45:58.440 --> 0:46:01.400 I might just randomly walk outside and meet a random 0:46:01.480 --> 0:46:03.680 person that could change my life, like you know what 0:46:03.680 --> 0:46:05.640 I mean. And I think people don't fully understand that either. 0:46:05.680 --> 0:46:08.759 It's like it's important to travel and it's important and 0:46:08.840 --> 0:46:11.040 like we just met you two days ago. Who knows 0:46:11.080 --> 0:46:12.879 where this relationship can go. But a lot of times 0:46:12.960 --> 0:46:16.000 we just so can find average person only leaves for 0:46:16.120 --> 0:46:18.680 like two weeks a year, and their day to day 0:46:18.800 --> 0:46:21.200 is exactly the same. And that's why it said, like 0:46:21.239 --> 0:46:23.360 even take a different route to work, because it's like 0:46:23.400 --> 0:46:26.520 you kind of just get programmed to wake up, walk 0:46:26.560 --> 0:46:28.359 your dog, take your kid to school, pick a kid 0:46:28.440 --> 0:46:30.440 up from school. And then like you're you're only interacting 0:46:30.480 --> 0:46:34.560 with ten people every day for your whole entire year. 0:46:35.480 --> 0:46:37.000 How are you going to change your life? Of course, 0:46:37.040 --> 0:46:38.000 your life is going to be the same. 0:46:38.000 --> 0:46:40.400 You're only talking to ten people, That's right, that's the 0:46:40.440 --> 0:46:43.000 allocation part. It was like most people who work in 0:46:43.680 --> 0:46:45.800 corporate worlds, they'll tell you you got two weeks of 0:46:45.880 --> 0:46:48.880 vacation for the year, so choose it wisely. You know 0:46:48.880 --> 0:46:51.000 what I'm saying. So it's like it's tough because it's 0:46:51.040 --> 0:46:52.719 like we're trying to figure out, this is how much 0:46:52.760 --> 0:46:54.719 time we have, and oh, I got to put it 0:46:54.760 --> 0:46:56.480 with my friends and my family because this is the 0:46:56.520 --> 0:46:58.239 only time I have. It's like if you get sick, 0:46:58.440 --> 0:46:59.600 good luck, you know what I mean. 0:46:59.760 --> 0:47:02.279 It's it's true, but I think that this goes back 0:47:02.320 --> 0:47:05.000 to the shifting mindset. Right, if we're working a job 0:47:05.160 --> 0:47:07.399 and we only have two weeks allocated for vacation, that's 0:47:07.440 --> 0:47:09.719 kind of what the rules are. But the reality is 0:47:09.719 --> 0:47:12.520 we also got fifty two weekends, right, And if you'd 0:47:12.560 --> 0:47:15.759 make a decision every other month, I'm going somewhere. Does 0:47:15.800 --> 0:47:17.440 that mean that you got to spend two grand to 0:47:17.480 --> 0:47:19.880 go out of the country or go to Mexico? Not necessarily, 0:47:20.120 --> 0:47:22.120 But if you live in New York, you got a 0:47:22.160 --> 0:47:24.799 friend in DC, you take that train down to DC 0:47:24.960 --> 0:47:27.520 and you stay with them, and it's exactly what you're saying. 0:47:27.960 --> 0:47:30.279 You're in you're at a different party, you're at someone 0:47:30.320 --> 0:47:32.560 else's house for dinner, and it's natural things. 0:47:32.719 --> 0:47:34.359 So what is it that you do right? 0:47:34.440 --> 0:47:35.840 And then having a consent where you go to school, 0:47:36.280 --> 0:47:38.000 and then once you start making those common links, hey, 0:47:38.000 --> 0:47:38.560 do you know so and so? 0:47:39.160 --> 0:47:39.960 No, Man, I got to. 0:47:39.960 --> 0:47:41.880 Introduce you to a friend of mine, right, that's we 0:47:41.960 --> 0:47:43.800 got to be in that mindset totally. How do you 0:47:43.880 --> 0:47:47.080 put yourself in places and spaces where you're meeting new people, 0:47:47.440 --> 0:47:50.120 having new conversations and then having new realities for you. 0:47:50.280 --> 0:47:52.320 You know what's crazy too, is like we're so programmed, 0:47:52.800 --> 0:47:54.920 and it's like the people start looking at you crazy. 0:47:54.960 --> 0:47:56.759 Like when you start traveling a lot, you start doing things, 0:47:56.800 --> 0:47:58.520 they start looking at you crazy, like why are you 0:47:58.600 --> 0:47:59.319 traveling so much? 0:47:59.520 --> 0:47:59.719 Yeah? 0:48:00.280 --> 0:48:02.160 You know you need to travel slow down a little bit? 0:48:02.640 --> 0:48:02.960 Why not? 0:48:03.760 --> 0:48:05.200 Like there was literally people. 0:48:04.960 --> 0:48:08.040 Will and then it's like even for you guys, not 0:48:08.239 --> 0:48:10.960 for me, but it's even relationships with people, like you know, 0:48:11.000 --> 0:48:13.600 you never know. It's like why are you traveling again? 0:48:13.760 --> 0:48:17.359 Or you're traveling again? Or and people it's like, yeah, 0:48:17.760 --> 0:48:19.200 why not travel? 0:48:19.239 --> 0:48:23.520 Oh yeah, if I can, I'll get like, hey, you 0:48:23.680 --> 0:48:26.160 gotta slow down. You need to slow down, man, you're 0:48:26.200 --> 0:48:28.600 moving around too much. And I'm like, na, man, we're 0:48:28.600 --> 0:48:30.480 trying to change the world here, like what I'm doing 0:48:30.680 --> 0:48:33.640 in education, like I don't go to work tomorrow. In school, 0:48:33.760 --> 0:48:36.279 somebody eventually will be the new teacher there, but like 0:48:36.360 --> 0:48:39.160 nobody's doing, we're doing, so I gotta advocate. I gotta 0:48:39.200 --> 0:48:41.200 allocate time for this because this is super important. 0:48:41.239 --> 0:48:42.839 You know, it's so it's so true, man. 0:48:42.960 --> 0:48:44.800 But that goes back to what we talked about success 0:48:44.880 --> 0:48:48.720 by association, right, is that there's a painful reality. 0:48:48.719 --> 0:48:49.200 And I learned this. 0:48:49.400 --> 0:48:51.600 I'll be honest with you, man. I remember being in Baltimore. 0:48:52.400 --> 0:48:55.320 It was a tough time in my life and I 0:48:55.520 --> 0:48:57.239 was in I was in. 0:48:57.239 --> 0:49:03.120 A motel and I had audio recording of one of 0:49:03.560 --> 0:49:09.320 Tony Robbins's programs and he said, write down. 0:49:11.880 --> 0:49:12.600 The most. 0:49:14.239 --> 0:49:19.360 Write down how you would describe success in business and 0:49:19.480 --> 0:49:23.160 health in relationships, and basically through one to five of 0:49:23.239 --> 0:49:26.000 where you are, and then you do the average of that. 0:49:27.560 --> 0:49:30.200 I was like at one point two of everything. 0:49:30.960 --> 0:49:31.160 Wow. 0:49:31.680 --> 0:49:33.720 And one of the things that he was talking about, 0:49:34.600 --> 0:49:36.160 and this isn't just you know, we say, like we 0:49:36.200 --> 0:49:38.320 said earlier, that your net worth is the average of 0:49:38.360 --> 0:49:40.520 five people that you spend most time with. But the 0:49:40.640 --> 0:49:46.520 deeper level of that concept is your net consciousness is 0:49:46.600 --> 0:49:48.120 the average of the five people you spend the most 0:49:48.160 --> 0:49:48.400 time with. 0:49:49.000 --> 0:49:50.400 Okay, so what that means is. 0:49:52.600 --> 0:49:55.319 One of my favorite rappers of Chuck D Public Enemy 0:49:55.400 --> 0:49:57.840 right from Public Enemy, and Chuck D said, if I 0:49:57.880 --> 0:50:00.600 can't change the people around me, I changed people around me. 0:50:02.120 --> 0:50:04.120 I'm in a situation where I can't change the people 0:50:04.160 --> 0:50:06.799 around me. I change the people around me. And when 0:50:06.840 --> 0:50:09.040 you hear things, no diside of your friends and people 0:50:09.080 --> 0:50:11.719 that love you. But when you hear things like you 0:50:11.840 --> 0:50:14.759 need to slow down, you're traveling too much, and you're 0:50:14.800 --> 0:50:18.200 not hearing the choruses telling you, Man, I'm so proud 0:50:18.239 --> 0:50:18.360 of you. 0:50:18.480 --> 0:50:20.000 Man, do it. 0:50:20.120 --> 0:50:20.279 Man. 0:50:20.400 --> 0:50:22.160 Every time I see a picture of you somewhere else, 0:50:22.400 --> 0:50:24.960 I get excited for you. What's the next thing you're doing. 0:50:25.440 --> 0:50:27.080 You're doing great now, but what's the next level you're 0:50:27.120 --> 0:50:29.120 trying to go to. If you don't have that courus 0:50:29.160 --> 0:50:33.839 around you, it's time to shift the team. It's time 0:50:33.880 --> 0:50:35.959 to shift the team. I learned this early in my career. 0:50:36.040 --> 0:50:37.840 Man. Remember one of my mentors, SA Kwami. 0:50:38.040 --> 0:50:39.960 The team that gets you from A to B, it's 0:50:40.000 --> 0:50:41.360 not the same team that's gonna get you from B 0:50:41.360 --> 0:50:43.120 two C or C D or D two E. And 0:50:43.200 --> 0:50:45.640 you as a leader, you have to be prepared. Doesn't 0:50:45.680 --> 0:50:47.080 mean there's not some people gonna go all the way 0:50:47.120 --> 0:50:49.920 with you. But for the most part, the whole team's 0:50:49.960 --> 0:50:50.319 not coming. 0:50:50.840 --> 0:50:52.120 Everybody might not gonna make it. 0:50:52.560 --> 0:50:55.000 That everybody's not gonna make it. It's not gonna happen. 0:50:55.320 --> 0:51:02.920 It's okay, right, we're only laughing because we say that 0:51:03.080 --> 0:51:10.799 all the time. Everybody's not come make so clearly, man, 0:51:13.600 --> 0:51:16.520 I say, I hit a nerve that is that is 0:51:16.600 --> 0:51:17.840 a that's a mantra that we. 0:51:17.960 --> 0:51:21.400 Are kind of kind of live back. You gotta get 0:51:21.400 --> 0:51:24.000 some of the the teacher. Everybody ain't coming. 0:51:26.960 --> 0:51:29.680 It'll be only it'll be only that's gonna be the shirt. 0:51:29.719 --> 0:51:33.160 It'll be only be only bus stops here, right, you're 0:51:33.160 --> 0:51:37.640 getting off. You get no transfers, no transfers. 0:51:38.880 --> 0:51:42.160 So from your perspective, as far as mindset, is mindset 0:51:42.280 --> 0:51:47.040 more more important than the information that people receive. But 0:51:47.400 --> 0:51:49.520 does it go hand in hand to make the information 0:51:49.719 --> 0:51:50.479 useful for people. 0:51:50.640 --> 0:51:52.000 Yeah, it's hard to quantify. 0:51:52.160 --> 0:51:54.160 But just to make the point, I mean, in my 0:51:54.320 --> 0:51:57.560 life experience, I always say in life, love and business, 0:51:58.520 --> 0:52:01.560 I would say ninety is mindset and ten percent is 0:52:01.600 --> 0:52:05.200 the info. Because if you don't have the right mindset, 0:52:05.600 --> 0:52:08.759 then you don't know how to digest the info. 0:52:09.400 --> 0:52:10.319 And we were kids. 0:52:10.360 --> 0:52:11.960 Memember of parents used to said, man, it's in one air. 0:52:12.000 --> 0:52:13.160 I tell you the same thing over and over. It's 0:52:13.160 --> 0:52:15.840 in one ear and out the other. Okay, you're getting 0:52:15.880 --> 0:52:18.880 the info, you're not retaining it, you're not digesting it, 0:52:18.960 --> 0:52:21.719 you're not processing it, and most importantly, you're not using 0:52:21.760 --> 0:52:25.560 it for the transformation. So the mindset, you know great. 0:52:26.400 --> 0:52:29.319 Wayne Dyer said, when you change the way you see things, 0:52:29.800 --> 0:52:33.080 the things that you see change. That had a profound 0:52:33.320 --> 0:52:35.759 impact on my life. So when you change whey you 0:52:35.800 --> 0:52:37.280 see things, the things that you see change. 0:52:37.360 --> 0:52:38.800 That is mindset. 0:52:39.480 --> 0:52:41.279 If I can think about this in a different way, 0:52:41.840 --> 0:52:44.640 then I can have a different result. There's another reason 0:52:44.680 --> 0:52:47.000 why you've got to have different people around you, because 0:52:47.040 --> 0:52:49.319 if you fall in the trap of commiserating, oh man, 0:52:49.360 --> 0:52:51.440 things are really tough right now, and you get a 0:52:51.480 --> 0:52:54.480 bunch of people that are supporting that song, you go 0:52:54.560 --> 0:52:57.400 deeper down that hole. You have some people say, man, 0:52:57.440 --> 0:53:00.520 stop complaining. Okay, that is that really helpful? You really 0:53:00.640 --> 0:53:02.640 need There's people who said, let me help you to 0:53:02.680 --> 0:53:05.160 see this thing differently. What you think is the problem 0:53:06.120 --> 0:53:09.640 could be an incredible opportunity. And because your mindset changes, 0:53:10.239 --> 0:53:12.640 then you look at the thing differently, You deal with 0:53:12.719 --> 0:53:15.160 the thing differently, and then you get different results. 0:53:15.680 --> 0:53:18.000 Yeah, I remember to end it on that. 0:53:18.200 --> 0:53:20.880 No, I was years ago. I was working at this 0:53:21.400 --> 0:53:25.719 play this company, and this guy he was like one 0:53:25.760 --> 0:53:30.120 of the top people, big time producer, and he was 0:53:30.160 --> 0:53:33.640 in the bathroom and another person came in the bathroom 0:53:34.120 --> 0:53:38.319 and started complaining about like the manager and was saying like, hey, 0:53:38.320 --> 0:53:39.759 you know what I mean. Like he's like, don't stop. 0:53:41.320 --> 0:53:44.400 I can't process any negative information. Can't process it. 0:53:44.640 --> 0:53:47.200 He stopped him, like aptitudes like Nope, not doing that. 0:53:48.200 --> 0:53:50.200 It's not it's not gonna be beneficial and it's only 0:53:50.280 --> 0:53:52.680 going to be negative and it's gonna lower my frequency 0:53:53.320 --> 0:53:54.239 and I can't. 0:53:54.320 --> 0:53:54.800 I can't do it. 0:53:55.320 --> 0:53:57.560 And when it was so profound because he didn't give 0:53:57.600 --> 0:54:00.120 him apology here and he just and for him to 0:54:00.160 --> 0:54:02.160 be at that level and just let me know, like, 0:54:02.239 --> 0:54:05.040 you know, everything that you put in your brain is important, 0:54:05.120 --> 0:54:06.560 and it's a lot of times we put so much 0:54:06.600 --> 0:54:09.600 negativity in our brain without even fully understanding what we're doing, 0:54:10.000 --> 0:54:12.560 and then we're wondering while we're not getting the positive results. 0:54:12.880 --> 0:54:14.399 That's that's right, that's right. Yeah. 0:54:14.400 --> 0:54:16.120 I think I did a social media post recently, and 0:54:16.160 --> 0:54:17.600 I was saying, you know, in order to kind of 0:54:17.640 --> 0:54:19.799 have a new reality, you have to have a new 0:54:19.880 --> 0:54:23.440 song in your head. Right, what's the story you're telling yourself. 0:54:23.480 --> 0:54:26.759 What's the song that you're singing. I've literally lost friendships 0:54:26.800 --> 0:54:30.200 and relationships saying similar things where people I was hearing 0:54:30.200 --> 0:54:32.239 a lot of gossip. I can't hear that right now. Nope, 0:54:32.480 --> 0:54:33.960 a matter of fact, I can't ever hear it. 0:54:37.920 --> 0:54:38.840 No, that's powerful. 0:54:39.000 --> 0:54:40.919 So all right, in the last segment, we're gonna close 0:54:40.920 --> 0:54:45.439 it out. We're gonna go to Mother Africa home. Yeah, 0:54:45.480 --> 0:54:48.640 the return for sure, awesome. All right, So in the 0:54:48.680 --> 0:54:50.560 last segment, we're gonna close it out and we're gonna 0:54:50.560 --> 0:54:52.600 go into national And this is something that I really 0:54:52.719 --> 0:54:55.319 I really like enjoying having these conversations because I always said, 0:54:55.400 --> 0:54:58.600 like the vision of we can never limit ourselves, we 0:54:58.640 --> 0:55:02.480 can never limit ourselves as far as like geographically or 0:55:02.640 --> 0:55:07.080 culturally or anything like the world is our oyster. I 0:55:07.120 --> 0:55:08.880 think it's important for people to understand that, and that's 0:55:08.920 --> 0:55:10.880 something that we really proud ourselves on. As far as 0:55:11.040 --> 0:55:15.040 your leisure, it's not just in America. We're in you know, 0:55:15.280 --> 0:55:17.239 we're blessed me and some of the top charts all 0:55:17.320 --> 0:55:21.080 over the world act and one continent specifically that we 0:55:21.400 --> 0:55:23.320 have reached the top charts in a lot of countries, 0:55:23.760 --> 0:55:28.080 it's Africa. So shout out to everybody in Africa, all countries, 0:55:28.120 --> 0:55:31.880 all over all countries in Africa. We definitely have to 0:55:31.960 --> 0:55:32.799 come to Africa soon. 0:55:33.040 --> 0:55:33.919 I'd love to be your host. 0:55:34.239 --> 0:55:35.840 Yeah, looking forward to that. A lot of people have 0:55:35.920 --> 0:55:38.160 been hitting us up asking to come to Africa. And 0:55:38.800 --> 0:55:42.320 as I said, you're African American, you have roots in Ghana, 0:55:42.480 --> 0:55:45.360 That's where your family is from, and I know you 0:55:45.480 --> 0:55:47.120 go back there pretty regularly, right. 0:55:47.239 --> 0:55:48.799 I do. Yeah, I'm there usually two or three times 0:55:48.840 --> 0:55:50.279 a year. It was it was a big event this 0:55:50.480 --> 0:55:51.320 this December. 0:55:51.600 --> 0:55:54.680 It was the year return in Africa and Ghana specifically, 0:55:54.840 --> 0:55:57.560 and you were holding a text onment you were speaking there. 0:55:57.520 --> 0:55:58.440 Right, I was, Yeah. 0:55:58.640 --> 0:56:00.720 I'm the US ambassador for the on A Tech Summit. 0:56:01.120 --> 0:56:04.000 The co founders Einstein and Christine and Tim have created 0:56:04.040 --> 0:56:07.200 this incredible vision of tech summits all over the continent. 0:56:07.680 --> 0:56:10.480 And this was the second annual Ghana Tech Summit that 0:56:10.600 --> 0:56:11.799 happened just last month. 0:56:12.480 --> 0:56:14.200 So can we talk about all right, can we talk 0:56:14.239 --> 0:56:16.920 about that as far as what's going on in Africa 0:56:17.040 --> 0:56:18.520 right now. And I think it's important to have these 0:56:18.560 --> 0:56:21.440 conversations because it's like for us being an African American 0:56:22.160 --> 0:56:25.480 and then from the continent people that's of African descent. 0:56:25.600 --> 0:56:28.000 On the continent, it's only a body of water that 0:56:28.160 --> 0:56:30.759 separates us, but a lot of times it seems like 0:56:30.840 --> 0:56:33.680 it's much further, but it's really not. We're not that separated. 0:56:35.080 --> 0:56:36.920 So it's important I want to bridge this gap for 0:56:37.120 --> 0:56:41.080 people in America and for people in Africa. What's going 0:56:41.120 --> 0:56:45.000 on in Ghana specifically as far as the tech boom 0:56:45.080 --> 0:56:47.960 that's happening there and the entrepreneur and what did you 0:56:48.080 --> 0:56:50.239 see when you go out there and you know, being 0:56:50.320 --> 0:56:52.040 out there giving a ted talk and things of that nature. 0:56:52.200 --> 0:56:54.880 Sure, so I'm so excited to have a chance to 0:56:54.960 --> 0:56:59.719 share and really making an open invitation. But piggyback and 0:56:59.760 --> 0:57:01.920 O's what you said is that twenty nineteen was the 0:57:01.960 --> 0:57:04.600 year of Return. And it was the President of Ghana 0:57:04.880 --> 0:57:07.200 who said, look, this is it's the four hundred year 0:57:07.880 --> 0:57:11.880 mark of the first African Africans who were brought to 0:57:12.440 --> 0:57:15.600 the United States or to North America as slaves. And 0:57:15.680 --> 0:57:17.439 so we're going to put our flag in the ground 0:57:17.480 --> 0:57:19.240 and say hey, we're marking this and we want you 0:57:19.360 --> 0:57:19.840 to come home. 0:57:19.920 --> 0:57:20.560 That's what he said. 0:57:21.240 --> 0:57:25.160 Come make cultural connection, Come learn how to invest, come 0:57:25.240 --> 0:57:27.720 to reconnect with the motherland. 0:57:28.800 --> 0:57:29.200 Post that. 0:57:29.280 --> 0:57:31.479 Now that we're going in twenty twenty, it's now called 0:57:31.680 --> 0:57:34.600 the Year of the Birthright, and we're taking it even 0:57:34.640 --> 0:57:37.439 further and saying the Decade of the Birthright. That means 0:57:37.480 --> 0:57:41.640 that you, as descendants of Mother Africa, your birthright is 0:57:41.680 --> 0:57:43.880 there waiting for you, so you got to come back 0:57:43.960 --> 0:57:47.400 and connect with it and build. What's happening in Ghana. 0:57:47.480 --> 0:57:50.200 First of all, it's the fastest growing economy on the 0:57:50.360 --> 0:57:54.040 continent of Africa. Okay, so on any given year it's 0:57:54.080 --> 0:57:59.320 doing six to eight percent growth. Billions of dollars are 0:57:59.360 --> 0:58:03.720 coming from all over the world building infrastructure, building gorgeous 0:58:03.720 --> 0:58:08.320 buildings and hotels, our family businesses, building affordable housing units 0:58:08.680 --> 0:58:09.520 and neighborhoods. 0:58:11.080 --> 0:58:12.920 You know, there's so much in any sector. 0:58:13.120 --> 0:58:15.600 It could be gold, it could be technology, it could 0:58:15.600 --> 0:58:20.520 be textiles, it could be five G anything. It's all 0:58:21.120 --> 0:58:23.760 in the early stages for people to get in and 0:58:23.880 --> 0:58:27.120 to build. And it's a beautiful country. And now granted 0:58:27.120 --> 0:58:29.560 I'm biased because my family is from there, But what 0:58:29.720 --> 0:58:31.400 I found is a year of return because we had 0:58:31.640 --> 0:58:37.160 thousands of African Americans coming that the mines were blown. 0:58:38.200 --> 0:58:41.840 But more importantly, what I knew was going to happen, 0:58:42.240 --> 0:58:45.800 and I watched it happen. There's a feeling when you 0:58:45.960 --> 0:58:48.680 get your feedback on that soil that you didn't know 0:58:49.120 --> 0:58:50.840 that you had the capacity to feel. 0:58:51.320 --> 0:58:54.960 Yeah, yeah, I mean just thinking visually, like every time, 0:58:55.080 --> 0:58:56.840 especially when we were growing up, there was just one 0:58:56.920 --> 0:58:58.680 image of what people thought Africa was. 0:58:58.800 --> 0:58:58.920 Right. 0:58:58.960 --> 0:59:02.280 It was like donated dollar to a child, right, or 0:59:02.360 --> 0:59:03.920 it was like you were in a safari And like 0:59:04.040 --> 0:59:06.280 when we saw the images coming back, especially like on 0:59:06.360 --> 0:59:07.760 social media, and I think that's the beauty of it, 0:59:08.200 --> 0:59:10.760 it was just like, wait, why are we not there? 0:59:10.960 --> 0:59:11.520 You know what I mean? 0:59:12.000 --> 0:59:14.280 And I'm sure that when people got there, like you 0:59:14.400 --> 0:59:15.560 saw that firsthand, right. 0:59:15.880 --> 0:59:17.400 I didn't. But it was literal, man. 0:59:17.440 --> 0:59:20.040 I mean there was people I had so many friends 0:59:20.320 --> 0:59:24.720 that literally canceled their return flights to stay another week 0:59:25.440 --> 0:59:31.000 or indefinitely. I watched people who have full time jobs 0:59:31.560 --> 0:59:36.600 writing emails and proposals to their bosses with ideas of 0:59:36.720 --> 0:59:40.800 how they could be working in Africa for three months. 0:59:40.520 --> 0:59:41.120 Out of the year. 0:59:41.760 --> 0:59:44.560 I watched it happen, So in the feeling, I was 0:59:44.600 --> 0:59:49.200 there with my buddy too, Shaka Sangor, incredible author, New 0:59:49.280 --> 0:59:51.840 York Times bestseller One Man Show All over the World, 0:59:51.960 --> 0:59:55.480 amazing friend of mine, and we did a film with him. 0:59:56.200 --> 0:59:57.920 So he came back to for the first time and 0:59:58.000 --> 1:00:00.920 we shot a docu film of him being over there, 1:00:01.400 --> 1:00:03.520 and he said something really deep he said when he said, 1:00:03.520 --> 1:00:04.600 what the feeling I thought I was going to have 1:00:04.640 --> 1:00:05.840 when I got back is that I'm home. 1:00:06.520 --> 1:00:08.480 He to to be honest with you, I didn't actually 1:00:08.520 --> 1:00:10.040 feel that. He said. 1:00:10.080 --> 1:00:14.320 What I felt was that I belonged here, And I 1:00:14.360 --> 1:00:16.920 think that is the thing for African Americans when they go. 1:00:17.600 --> 1:00:20.240 It's the sense that you belong there. You don't have 1:00:20.320 --> 1:00:24.400 to move, but that feeling. The reality is most Black 1:00:24.400 --> 1:00:28.400 Americans have never felt that their whole life. Very true, 1:00:28.600 --> 1:00:31.640 so that I think that's the massive opportunities in every sector. 1:00:31.960 --> 1:00:35.160 I'm obviously on the tech space, but whatever you're into, 1:00:35.760 --> 1:00:38.480 you will find a place, you will find the feeling 1:00:38.560 --> 1:00:40.440 of belonging, and you're going to want to be doing 1:00:40.480 --> 1:00:44.920 business and building this next civilization in Africa. 1:00:45.240 --> 1:00:48.120 So what is the opportunities as far as for foreigners, 1:00:48.160 --> 1:00:51.360 Because I've heard Akon say, like, anybody that's doing business 1:00:51.400 --> 1:00:53.880 in America, you got to come to Africa and do business, 1:00:53.920 --> 1:00:56.400 and I guarantee like your business like boom like, you'll 1:00:56.440 --> 1:00:59.960 be way more successful doing anything, whether it's doing insurance, 1:01:00.080 --> 1:01:03.320 whether it's real estate, whether it's writing, whatever, doing in Africa. 1:01:03.360 --> 1:01:04.200 He said that before. 1:01:04.400 --> 1:01:08.600 So what are the opportunities and how welcoming is it 1:01:08.800 --> 1:01:13.960 for foreigners, specifically Americans that may be in business to 1:01:14.080 --> 1:01:16.440 come to Africa because obviously you don't know that the 1:01:16.960 --> 1:01:18.800 dynamics of it. You got to like partner up and 1:01:19.000 --> 1:01:19.880 meet people out there. 1:01:20.560 --> 1:01:25.240 Yeah, so two parts of that I always tell people. 1:01:25.440 --> 1:01:27.920 There's there's the what, the why and the how, So 1:01:28.040 --> 1:01:30.960 the what is other opportunities The answer is absolutely yes, 1:01:31.480 --> 1:01:33.680 But then we get into the why. It is easy 1:01:33.720 --> 1:01:35.800 I want to reconnect with Africa and be part of 1:01:35.920 --> 1:01:38.000 creating the change that we want to see. The how 1:01:38.400 --> 1:01:41.880 is about who do you know? Who do you know 1:01:42.040 --> 1:01:44.960 over there that can help you to be able to 1:01:45.120 --> 1:01:49.400 navigate through It's difficult to do business in Ghana and 1:01:49.520 --> 1:01:51.960 quite frankly on the continent when you don't know people 1:01:52.520 --> 1:01:54.520 because you don't have access and you don't know how 1:01:54.560 --> 1:01:55.440 to navigate through there. 1:01:56.000 --> 1:01:57.480 But it's it's the same here. I mean, if I 1:01:57.880 --> 1:01:59.640 you know, I've never been in New York and I'm trying. 1:01:59.440 --> 1:02:01.640 To do business and or stop, I know a whole 1:02:01.640 --> 1:02:05.560 lot of people well connected business, finance, city Hall. I'm 1:02:05.560 --> 1:02:06.720 gonna get some subst out quickly. 1:02:06.880 --> 1:02:07.120 Yeah. 1:02:07.320 --> 1:02:08.959 So it's really important to connect with people. 1:02:09.080 --> 1:02:11.080 And Joe, when you mentioned about seeing the social media, 1:02:11.520 --> 1:02:13.080 if you have friends that you saw over there with 1:02:13.160 --> 1:02:16.240 social media, I guarantee you they were making relationships and 1:02:16.280 --> 1:02:18.320 friendships over there, you need to get in touch with 1:02:18.400 --> 1:02:20.480 them and say, hey, I'm interested in doing business. 1:02:20.840 --> 1:02:22.560 Who do you know over there? Now? 1:02:22.760 --> 1:02:24.680 You know, I'll do a little bit of promotion because 1:02:24.680 --> 1:02:26.360 I want people to be connected to me as well. 1:02:26.720 --> 1:02:28.520 But then we can help to get you connected to 1:02:28.600 --> 1:02:30.840 folks that can help you based on the things that 1:02:30.880 --> 1:02:31.480 you're interested in. 1:02:31.600 --> 1:02:32.520 Oh, your company does that? 1:02:32.920 --> 1:02:35.040 So I work with folks. I've got partners over there. Ok. 1:02:35.240 --> 1:02:37.440 Yeah, so we you know, we've got a consulting company too, 1:02:38.000 --> 1:02:40.200 so we help people that are interested in doing business 1:02:40.240 --> 1:02:41.880 in Africa, specifically in Ghana. 1:02:42.000 --> 1:02:44.000 You bridged that gain absolutely what's the name of the company. 1:02:44.080 --> 1:02:46.439 Yeah, so my partner with there is black Band. Black 1:02:46.480 --> 1:02:50.040 Band Terry Opong, He's the CEO and founder of black Band. 1:02:50.600 --> 1:02:54.760 What are some industries that they definitely need like right away? 1:02:54.840 --> 1:02:56.640 That's the opportunities for entrepreneurs. 1:02:56.800 --> 1:03:00.959 Oh, well, you'll be happy. I think the real estate 1:03:01.000 --> 1:03:02.760 and obviously our family is in the real estate business. 1:03:02.800 --> 1:03:07.560 But the real estate opportunities in Ghana are extraordinary. It's 1:03:07.640 --> 1:03:09.760 just extraordinary. You got to need right now for a 1:03:09.920 --> 1:03:12.680 million people for affordable housing. 1:03:14.560 --> 1:03:16.120 That's a Cilian Presidentirey. 1:03:16.200 --> 1:03:18.600 Yeah, yeah, development, real estate development. 1:03:18.640 --> 1:03:22.240 Real estate development is huge. But I mean, honest with you, 1:03:22.320 --> 1:03:23.880 the thing is so wide that it's what are you 1:03:24.040 --> 1:03:26.760 what are you passionate about? People interested in fashion, the 1:03:26.840 --> 1:03:30.160 textile industry, fashion explosive. The other area we need to 1:03:30.200 --> 1:03:33.560 really start thinking about is the cocoa industry. Coco Ghana 1:03:33.640 --> 1:03:37.760 producers three percent of the global supply excuse me, seventy 1:03:37.800 --> 1:03:40.560 percent of the global supply of coco, but we're only 1:03:40.640 --> 1:03:43.160 participating in three percent of the supply chain benefit of 1:03:43.200 --> 1:03:47.120 that seventy seventy percent, and between Ghana and Ivory Coast, 1:03:47.240 --> 1:03:50.640 it's ninety percent of the entire planet's coco comes from 1:03:50.680 --> 1:03:54.240 those two places, but we're participating in a minuscule part 1:03:54.280 --> 1:03:57.080 of the profit because we're not processing. 1:03:56.600 --> 1:03:57.320 It there correctly. 1:03:57.440 --> 1:04:01.160 We're just we're just growing the coco, sending it to 1:04:01.560 --> 1:04:04.080 out there's no infrastructure to properly. 1:04:04.680 --> 1:04:07.840 It's like the diamonds in South Africa, and then they 1:04:08.040 --> 1:04:10.080 send it to Israel to actually get cut and all 1:04:10.120 --> 1:04:10.240 of that. 1:04:10.520 --> 1:04:12.680 That's that's exactly like when we spoke about spoke about 1:04:12.920 --> 1:04:16.640 Elco Dangote when he was when he changed his country's 1:04:16.760 --> 1:04:20.240 export to import policy, right, like they were putting out 1:04:20.280 --> 1:04:23.400 so much oil. He built the infrastructures so now they're 1:04:23.480 --> 1:04:25.800 able to export it to countries and make money. It 1:04:25.880 --> 1:04:28.360 completely changes the income for the entire country. 1:04:28.440 --> 1:04:30.440 Yeah, Nigeria is one of the they have one of 1:04:30.480 --> 1:04:33.600 the largest oil reserves in the world, but they don't 1:04:34.560 --> 1:04:37.120 produce a lot of oil. Now they're starting to change that, 1:04:37.240 --> 1:04:39.600 but because the refineries just wasn't enough to cove and 1:04:39.680 --> 1:04:43.880 they couldn't actually produce it well, efficiently, well and efficiently. 1:04:43.960 --> 1:04:47.280 That's exactly right. So yeah, so look, whether it's oil, whether. 1:04:47.120 --> 1:04:51.479 It's solar, agriculture, real estate tech, which is my world, 1:04:52.240 --> 1:04:55.360 our developers over there are coders over there. There's so 1:04:55.440 --> 1:04:58.200 many incredible opportunities. So when you think about the United States, 1:04:58.240 --> 1:04:59.959 the people really made money back in the day build 1:05:00.080 --> 1:05:02.800 the railroads and everything else. Those families and the oil families. 1:05:03.400 --> 1:05:06.200 We can be those families in Ghana right now in 1:05:06.320 --> 1:05:06.880 twenty twenty. 1:05:07.120 --> 1:05:11.880 And media opportunities are there, Media opportunities and god, oh. 1:05:11.840 --> 1:05:17.120 Absolutely, media infrastructures. 1:05:17.120 --> 1:05:18.360 And I think that's one of the things that trips 1:05:18.400 --> 1:05:19.840 people out, man, when they get the gun and they 1:05:19.880 --> 1:05:23.840 flip on the television and everything. It's like everything here, 1:05:24.000 --> 1:05:28.000 your sports center, your news, But it's us. It's hosting, 1:05:28.200 --> 1:05:31.400 that's producing, that's running those stations and those networks. 1:05:31.600 --> 1:05:33.320 I think it's exciting for content creators. 1:05:33.480 --> 1:05:36.800 No, I think creators and I see you firsthand as 1:05:36.840 --> 1:05:39.240 far as we're earn your leisures because like I see, 1:05:39.280 --> 1:05:41.439 it's a need for what we do in different parts 1:05:41.480 --> 1:05:43.400 of the world, Like people can't wait for us to 1:05:43.440 --> 1:05:47.120 come to Toronto, Canada. Same thing with London, England, Africa. 1:05:47.360 --> 1:05:50.720 And it's like we're highlighting entrepreneurs and we're explaining different 1:05:50.720 --> 1:05:52.880 business ventures in a way that people can understand it. 1:05:53.200 --> 1:05:55.600 And it's just like music, right, like you might be 1:05:56.160 --> 1:06:00.320 a huge jay Z fan, but you're from London and 1:06:00.400 --> 1:06:03.480 he's from Brooklyn. It's just a little different as far 1:06:03.520 --> 1:06:05.880 as the dialect, the things that he's rapping about is 1:06:05.960 --> 1:06:08.640 not the same. But you genuinely you got to love 1:06:08.720 --> 1:06:11.040 for the music and I feel like that the podcast 1:06:11.160 --> 1:06:13.680 is the same thing like people. It might not be 1:06:13.800 --> 1:06:15.800 specific as far as the stuff that we're talking about. 1:06:15.800 --> 1:06:18.040 A lot of this stuff is just is geared towards America. 1:06:18.520 --> 1:06:22.720 We're working on getting more international content, but they just 1:06:22.760 --> 1:06:28.400 sty're encouraged by us by our delivery. And so our 1:06:28.480 --> 1:06:30.880 goal with Earn Lisia is is to take this all 1:06:30.920 --> 1:06:35.880 over the world and to have Summits platforms, podcast shows 1:06:36.360 --> 1:06:39.280 in different countries and highlight entrepreneurs. Don't We're not going 1:06:39.360 --> 1:06:41.560 to do the chrystical Columbus thing and just come with 1:06:41.720 --> 1:06:44.600 people from America and shove all way of thinking on 1:06:44.960 --> 1:06:47.680 other countries. We want to actually invite people that's doing 1:06:47.720 --> 1:06:50.600 their thing in their countries and break it down because 1:06:50.600 --> 1:06:52.440 a lot of times people business owners, they don't have 1:06:52.520 --> 1:06:54.520 a platform and the people don't have a way to 1:06:54.560 --> 1:06:58.800 get the information from those people. So it's a disconnecting Yeah. 1:06:58.720 --> 1:07:01.880 There's people doing amazing things. Like you said, the woman 1:07:01.880 --> 1:07:04.320 you spoke about earlier, who is the Oprah Winfrey in 1:07:04.400 --> 1:07:07.080 the text space that was unfamiliar to us. You know 1:07:07.120 --> 1:07:09.840 what I'm saying, there's no platform for her to be. 1:07:10.960 --> 1:07:13.360 It's not exploited, but displayed her greatness. 1:07:13.440 --> 1:07:13.920 You know what I mean. 1:07:14.400 --> 1:07:16.080 I think it's so important at what we're doing here, 1:07:16.360 --> 1:07:18.600 and to do it internationally will be even more incredible. 1:07:18.720 --> 1:07:20.600 Well, I tell you, I was really moved by what 1:07:20.680 --> 1:07:22.120 you both just said, and I'm going to make a 1:07:22.120 --> 1:07:24.000 commitment to you. One of the reasons why a lot 1:07:24.000 --> 1:07:25.439 of people want to be on your show is because 1:07:25.480 --> 1:07:27.880 you give them a platform and you give them exposure. 1:07:28.440 --> 1:07:30.160 I want to be able to make a commitment to 1:07:30.240 --> 1:07:33.360 you all and to help on the international scene. I've 1:07:33.400 --> 1:07:37.280 got great friends and great relationships with entrepreneurs in Toronto, 1:07:38.120 --> 1:07:40.920 in London, and in Ghana. Okay, so I'm going to 1:07:41.000 --> 1:07:46.800 help you breaking news alert, breaking news. I'm going to 1:07:46.880 --> 1:07:51.200 help you to put those events together in Toronto, in London, 1:07:51.840 --> 1:07:52.760 but in Ghana. 1:07:53.480 --> 1:07:54.439 I'm gonna host you guys. 1:07:54.600 --> 1:07:57.760 Oh we'll tell you haven't oh man, I'm hosting you 1:07:57.840 --> 1:07:59.400 and our family are gonna host you and bring you 1:07:59.520 --> 1:08:02.320 all out so you can experience the country the way 1:08:02.360 --> 1:08:04.080 it was supposed to be experienced. 1:08:04.640 --> 1:08:06.919 And will get you connected. And then but your job 1:08:07.080 --> 1:08:07.920 is to just do what you do. 1:08:08.480 --> 1:08:10.320 That's it. We're going to do it big en after. 1:08:11.720 --> 1:08:12.680 A big. 1:08:15.520 --> 1:08:17.680 World. Why for real? 1:08:17.920 --> 1:08:19.400 Oh Man Kwalme. 1:08:19.560 --> 1:08:22.080 I appreciate you, and like I said, this is all 1:08:22.160 --> 1:08:24.160 it's all about relationships, and it's like we just met. 1:08:24.800 --> 1:08:26.360 You were actually, you know. 1:08:26.400 --> 1:08:28.840 An advocate for the podcast before we met you, which 1:08:28.920 --> 1:08:30.840 is really dope because you're on the whole different coast 1:08:31.280 --> 1:08:33.519 and it's all you know, a couple of degrees of separation. 1:08:33.600 --> 1:08:33.720 You know. 1:08:33.800 --> 1:08:36.920 We interviewed Mike Brown, which you're invested in his company, 1:08:37.680 --> 1:08:41.719 and we met you at his event and you spoke 1:08:42.120 --> 1:08:44.200 and kicked it off and then shout out to Mike 1:08:44.240 --> 1:08:46.200 Brown also because even when you spoke, we still have 1:08:46.479 --> 1:08:49.360 tie the dots on that and he's like, yo, yeah, 1:08:49.360 --> 1:08:51.160 should have called me on the podcast. I'm like, all right, 1:08:51.240 --> 1:08:53.479 let's do it, and so yeah, shout out to Mike 1:08:53.520 --> 1:08:54.360 for actually quarterback. 1:08:54.400 --> 1:08:57.880 And on top of that, one of your students tell 1:08:57.960 --> 1:09:00.280 us really quickly, I have a. 1:09:00.240 --> 1:09:00.800 Couple of mentees. 1:09:00.840 --> 1:09:02.719 I'm on the board of a university called North Central 1:09:02.760 --> 1:09:06.400 University in Minneapolis, and a couple of students, young couple. 1:09:07.400 --> 1:09:10.519 They're my mentees. So I was in town having dinner 1:09:10.600 --> 1:09:14.000 with them, and they had invested in Mike's company. So 1:09:14.240 --> 1:09:15.080 I'm having dinner with. 1:09:15.120 --> 1:09:16.439 Them and I said, oh, man, I'm so excited. You 1:09:16.520 --> 1:09:17.240 guys invested in. 1:09:17.280 --> 1:09:20.200 Win Win and which which one of my social media 1:09:20.320 --> 1:09:23.439 posts influenced you to make a decision? And they call 1:09:23.520 --> 1:09:26.479 me uncle Kwame, Uncle Kame, what do you mean? I 1:09:26.560 --> 1:09:29.280 was like, didn't you invest because of me working with them? 1:09:30.560 --> 1:09:31.240 You work with him? 1:09:33.240 --> 1:09:34.960 I was like, how did you find out about when Win? 1:09:35.400 --> 1:09:38.639 And he Michael. It's a couple of Michael and Grace. 1:09:38.680 --> 1:09:42.120 They just got engaged. Michael brings out his phone and 1:09:42.240 --> 1:09:45.720 shows me the screenshot that a friend of his had 1:09:45.800 --> 1:09:50.320 sent him of the EYL episode, and all she said 1:09:50.479 --> 1:09:52.519 was you need to invest in this right now. 1:09:54.160 --> 1:09:54.799 That's crazy. 1:09:54.920 --> 1:09:58.280 We watched the episode. We love those guys, and we invested. 1:09:59.120 --> 1:10:00.600 So I'm very grateful to. 1:10:00.600 --> 1:10:05.680 You for what you told us the story. I was 1:10:05.760 --> 1:10:09.080 just like, WHOA, yeah, No, your reach is incredible. 1:10:09.120 --> 1:10:11.160 That's probably I was saying with Toronto man literally had 1:10:11.160 --> 1:10:13.759 a friend of mine was talking to and to recommend podcasts. 1:10:13.840 --> 1:10:16.200 And she's like, the number one was Eyl. 1:10:16.000 --> 1:10:18.880 She from Toronto. Shout out in Toronto, the first one. 1:10:22.800 --> 1:10:24.919 So now a shout to Toronto. 1:10:25.160 --> 1:10:25.720 Man, thank you. 1:10:26.640 --> 1:10:30.320 But yeah, so how can people contact your information on 1:10:30.360 --> 1:10:33.840 you on your your business, different business ventures and uh yeah, 1:10:33.920 --> 1:10:35.599 any information that you want to give the public? 1:10:35.760 --> 1:10:38.040 Sure, man, very very easy. First thing on the business side, 1:10:38.080 --> 1:10:40.639 get connected with me on LinkedIn. So it's just quime 1:10:40.800 --> 1:10:43.240 k w A m E. Last name a n k 1:10:43.439 --> 1:10:46.040 u ku. You definitely connect with me on LinkedIn. That's 1:10:46.080 --> 1:10:50.799 the best platform for business networking in my opinion. Instagram, 1:10:50.880 --> 1:10:52.800 you know, we'll post this, my link will be there. 1:10:53.240 --> 1:10:57.360 And then the website is Blackstar that fund? Black Star 1:10:57.680 --> 1:10:58.200 that fund. 1:10:58.439 --> 1:11:00.679 And what about the what's the company that you connect 1:11:00.680 --> 1:11:01.639 people with in Africa? 1:11:01.840 --> 1:11:05.680 Yeah, black band dot co. Black black Band dot Co. 1:11:06.160 --> 1:11:12.280 Terry Apong phenomenal, phenomenal business leader and entrepreneur over there 1:11:12.520 --> 1:11:14.360 on the ground making stuff happen. 1:11:15.280 --> 1:11:18.879 I appreciate that, Troy shout out to everybody on Patreon 1:11:18.920 --> 1:11:19.280 dot com. 1:11:19.400 --> 1:11:21.120 Y'all know that it is our proud to pay program. 1:11:21.640 --> 1:11:23.120 It has grown over the months. 1:11:23.160 --> 1:11:23.280 Man. 1:11:23.360 --> 1:11:25.639 We are so happy that everybody's come along the ride 1:11:25.680 --> 1:11:27.920 with us. As you know, we have switched it up 1:11:27.920 --> 1:11:29.720 a little bit giving you more content, so be on 1:11:29.760 --> 1:11:31.479 the lookout for that. And I want to just give 1:11:31.479 --> 1:11:35.559 a quick shout out to Havana. Uh we got Jessica 1:11:35.760 --> 1:11:38.360 and Justin are new members. Man, y'all are Tier four 1:11:38.439 --> 1:11:40.479 Tier five members, so you obviously know you have access 1:11:40.600 --> 1:11:43.479 to Early Legion University. That is our online school where 1:11:43.479 --> 1:11:46.960 we have webinars three times a week, real estate on Monday. 1:11:47.080 --> 1:11:49.320 We have a guest webinar every Wednesday, and shouty myself. 1:11:49.360 --> 1:11:51.479 We always do a business related one on Thursdays. And 1:11:51.640 --> 1:11:54.759 ey Spno is out there, so be on the lookout 1:11:54.880 --> 1:11:57.200 and thank you for supporting. Everybody's supporting the merchan only 1:11:57.280 --> 1:11:59.519 leisure dot com new merch is on the way all 1:11:59.600 --> 1:12:02.599 our earning. Be sure to cop the new merge. It's 1:12:02.600 --> 1:12:05.360 specifically made for you by us, so thank you. 1:12:05.439 --> 1:12:06.000 Please report. 1:12:06.240 --> 1:12:09.799 Yeah, everybody asks you about the track suit, so episode 1:12:09.840 --> 1:12:12.040 comes out. Hopefully the tracksuit will be on the website 1:12:12.640 --> 1:12:16.160 EYL University. Yes, make sure you stay in tune with that. 1:12:17.400 --> 1:12:20.519 And the book tip of this week recommended by our guests. 1:12:20.600 --> 1:12:23.479 The one thing, the one thing correct that's it. Yes, 1:12:23.640 --> 1:12:26.160 so yes, Thank you guys for rocking with us. We'll 1:12:26.200 --> 1:12:26.880 see you next week. 1:12:26.960 --> 1:12:27.800 Peace, Peace, Peace. 1:12:28.400 --> 1:12:32.040 An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child 1:12:32.120 --> 1:12:35.880 in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador 1:12:36.160 --> 1:12:40.240 accused of murdering a Texas. Man of Venezuelan charged with 1:12:40.360 --> 1:12:44.200 filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just 1:12:44.360 --> 1:12:48.080 some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President 1:12:48.160 --> 1:12:51.679 Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christine Noman, the United States 1:12:51.760 --> 1:12:56.519 Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border 1:12:56.560 --> 1:13:00.240 crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded o where 1:13:00.240 --> 1:13:03.360 one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you 1:13:03.479 --> 1:13:07.280 are here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly 1:13:07.400 --> 1:13:11.360 one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned and deported, you will 1:13:11.479 --> 1:13:15.080 never return. But if you register using our CBP home 1:13:15.160 --> 1:13:18.479 app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally. 1:13:18.880 --> 1:13:23.559 Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws, 1:13:23.800 --> 1:13:25.720 border and families. 1:13:25.439 --> 1:13:27.800 Will be protected. Sponsored by the United States Department of 1:13:27.840 --> 1:13:28.439 Homeland Security,