Full Transcript for Relationship Capital: Your Network Is Your Net Worth

Speaker 3: We met. I vibed you. I thought you were a good dude. And I said yes. 00:03:14 Speaker 2: Now, somebody else who calls my speaking agent, they get quoted $ 50, 000 for a 45-minute speech. 00:03:20 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:03:24 Speaker 2: Because I don't know them. It's a commercial transaction. And I'm even losing money when I do that, if I have to travel. 00:03:30 Speaker 3: To go do it. But I might have some strategic reasons to do it. I'm doing this for free. 00:03:34 Speaker 2: Because, and all I was told today was, hey, John, you got a podcast with Will. 00:03:40 Speaker 3: And I thought for a minute, Will. 00:03:41 Speaker 2: Oh my God, yeah, I love that dude. That's relationship capital. That's what makes the world go around. And if you hang around nine broke people, you'll be the 10th. So you got to watch who you hang around. You got to watch your mindset. And we got to learn. I was just thinking this morning, we got to become bilingual. Black people become bilingual. Civil rights is cool. We also need civil rights. Being able to defend yourself in the streets is cool, but I want you to win in the suites. I want you to understand what red light red rooms are, which are defending yourself against racism and bias and police brutality and all that stuff. But I want you to be in more and more green rooms where internships and apprenticeships and jobs and access to capital and opportunity is. Because what really happens is you don't have to ask for money. You build the right kind of rapport and reputation. 00:04:37 Speaker 1: And so I want to start this off going. I'm interested in the origin story. 00:04:41 Speaker 5: So. 00:04:42 Speaker 1: Let's go back to, I think it's 2016. You are in your Harlem apartment. You know, you're in the biggest city, like the most, you know, important city in many ways when you talk about culture and creativity and fashion and music in the world. And you feel some void of community. And I wonder what was that void? If you look back, what was that void? Can you define it? What you were looking for? 00:05:07 Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, when I look back, you know, I was working as a publicist working in television and really loved my corporate job. But the irony of living in New York at that time was I couldn't find my community. And so I thought I just can't be the only one. And I invited a few friends over to my apartment in Harlem. I made food for them. And the question that I asked was, what. 00:05:32 Speaker 7: Are you working on? But it can't be work. 00:05:35 Speaker 6: Because I knew that what was happening at the time was there was this transactional feeling of, what. 00:05:40 Speaker 8: Do you do? 00:05:41 Speaker 7: Where do you live? What do you do? 00:05:42 Speaker 8: Where do you live? 00:05:43 Speaker 6: And I thought, no matter what someone does today, it doesn't define what they're going to go on to do. 00:05:49 Speaker 7: No matter where they live today, it doesn't define where they're going to go on to live. 00:05:52 Speaker 6: So how can we get a little bit deeper? And that is how Creative Collective was born. Fast forward to us meeting outside of my living room. We were meeting so often that I thought, I think we can make this a conference. And That is when CultureCon was born. 00:06:09 Speaker 7: We had 150 people. 00:06:12 Speaker 6: Spike Lee was our first speaker and the rest was really history. 00:06:16 Speaker 1: So before I get to my next one, how do you go from an idea to Spike Lee saying yes? 00:06:22 Speaker 6: I think in the beginning, there is got to be a little bit of obsession, a lot of obsession, because in the beginning of anything, there's so many reasons to not do it. 00:06:33 Speaker 7: You don't feel qualified. You don't feel ready. 00:06:35 Speaker 6: You don't know if you have the resources. But I think that the drive and the obsession has to outweigh the fear, even if you're not that confident in it. And so for me, I've always been someone who believes in very little quest in the direction of my dreams. So I don't start thinking culture con. I start thinking, can I get 20 people to show up to my apartment consistently? And I think the more that you keep promises to yourself, the easier it is to build traction because, you know, the 12,000 person conference that we had a month ago was definitely not built, you know, from a living room apartment, but it was the consistency and the community that helped to kind of like accelerate that ambition. 00:07:27 Speaker 1: You know, I read that you are a PK, Preacher's Kid. I'm a Preacher's Kid also. And yeah, yeah. And I think about, Because you've used this word and, you know, your whole work is around this word of community. And I think about, you know, if I define community, it is that safety, that fellowship, that gathering of people who are looking in the same direction. And even if you're not doing the same thing, you're at least looking in the same direction. So the work that you're doing today, how would you kind of correlate it to being a PK, like that church experience? Is this like a remix of the church experience, like how you're gathering people? 00:08:05 Speaker 6: I love the way that you just defined community of looking in the same direction. I will quote you moving forward, but I'm going to use that, Will. But I think, yes, I think that there are so many seeds planted inside of each of us, so many experiences in our childhood and our kind of unique journeys that come to fruition and bloom later on in your life. And so I I mean, when I look back, and of course, the story makes so much more sense than when I was really living it. But absolutely, moving from town to town, having to start over again and again. My parents are pastors now, but growing up, they were missionaries. So we lived on Air Force Base. They worked in prisons. I have two sisters, and we would move to places like Ocala, Florida, and Pleasant Grove, Alabama. And every single time I'd

have to start over and I didn't really have the luxury of being the shy girl in the corner. I had to make some friends. And so when I think about how I would make those friends, it always started with curiosity. And the same thing was when I would go to new churches, I would just ask people questions. 00:09:15 Speaker 5: Where are you from? 00:09:16 Speaker 7: How long have you been going here? What are the best snacks? Let me know. And we would build community. 00:09:22 Speaker 6: And so I think so much of who I am now is recognizing that where you see someone is never where they started. And so I always want to try to get back to what makes us similar, not what makes us the same, but like what makes us similar. And I think that definitely started, you know, with Bible study and church and just meeting all different types of people around the world. 00:09:49 Speaker 1: You once described the early days of the creative collective this way. You said, The only rule for this invitation was that they had to bring someone that they could vouch for. And I think about that, you know, vouching mechanism. It's like, how did that shape the initial culture of the group? And how do you scale that? 00:10:11 Speaker 6: I think, you know, trust is such a direct pipeline to safety and And the mechanics of it in the beginning were I was a woman living alone in Harlem. And so for pure safety, I needed to make sure that my friends understood the weight of that invitation, that they were inviting someone to a place where I was going to be laying my head, that I lived, that person would forever have my home address. And I think my friends took that very seriously because of their love for me. And so they were very intentional with who can I vouch for? Who can I bring here? And I think when we look back to kind of like the fact that like even the Harlem Renaissance and the fact that the Harlem Renaissance was birthed during the great depression, I don't think that that is, I don't think that that is a coincidence. I think that art is kind of born out of these gatherings. It's born out of us being together. It's born out of storytelling. And so I, I, the vouch for is something that I think became honestly like a vacuum, a vacuum for intimacy. And when we asked people, what are you working on? And it can't be work. Well, like you, you would have been so surprised. We had people saying, I'm working on talking to my mom. We haven't spoken in two years, but I think this is the year that I'm. 00:11:42 Speaker 5: Going to do it. 00:11:43 Speaker 6: Or I'm working to be more vulnerable in my romantic relationships because I'm I'm a boss at work, but I don't know how to be vulnerable in romance. And I'm kind of looking around like, oh, this is what we're doing? But people just needed permission to just be a little bit more honest. And so I think as we have scaled, what we try to do is make very big rooms feel small. And so we call that scaling intimacy because when you come to

CultureCon, even though it might feel corporate or it might feel large, we're doing icebreakers. We've got a tradition called leave your fears. And when you come into Culture Con, there's a wall where you write down your fear and you hang it up and you can see thousands of people's fears. And we do that not to put fear at the forefront, but to show you that everybody is scared of something. Even the people that you think are fearless. It's not that they're fearless, it's that they're courageous. And so that I think is how we scale intimacy is kind of showing the humanity, um, that lives inside of everyone. 00:12:53 Speaker 1: So there's a quote I found from you. 00:12:56 Speaker 3: I loved it. 00:12:57 Speaker 1: And I was like, I want to start this conversation off from that. You said a billion dollar network equals a multimillion dollar company. And so I want you to talk about like where you got that concept from and how do you like operate, operationalize that concept into like the decisions you make every day? 00:13:14 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:13:16 Speaker 9: So my book, originate, motivate, innovate seven steps for building a billion dollar network and get us on Amazon bars and over wherever you buy books. Um, also the audible, if you listen to books and it is my voice. 00:13:28 Speaker 5: Um, so here's the thing that I learned, right? 00:13:31 Speaker 9: I think when we start businesses, we focus so much on like, Oh, I need to like get the product, right. I need to like, you know, figure out how this product works and customers and things like that. But when you hit a wall or when you, are just stuck in a place where you're trying to understand how to move, you got to have a network. 00:13:49 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:13:50 Speaker 9: And I think network also means two different things. You need your business network of people that you can go ask questions of, but you also need to have your wellness network. Because if you want to get closer to God, become an entrepreneur. 00:14:02 Speaker 1: That's a fact. 00:14:03 Speaker 9: That's a fact. But what that brought to mind, coming up with that quote, was I realized the real moment that I started rocking and rolling as an entrepreneur, really, really bringing in impact and things like that is when I connected my network to the work that I'm doing by thinking about how can I leverage it? 00:14:28 Speaker 5: It's an asset. Your network is an asset. Your ability to reach out and use a free space. 00:14:33 Speaker 9: Your ability to think about our connection to TikTok means that we can connect creators to different things. We can Um, we can also do things like, uh, figure out how to support you in the platform. You know, it's the, sometimes the biggest thing you can do is not asking for the thing that's right in front of you. It is thinking about what else do they have? What else can they offer? What else is available and how you're going to grow your network? I think billion dollar company, billion dollar network means you got enough people there where you can operate something as a multimillion dollar thing. It's like, you need that. You can get all the capital, but when you hit a wall, you need a person. 00:15:13 Speaker 1: So you talked about how you knew you had something and the people that you target are the people who need a raise. Those are the people that can create these opportunities. 00:15:24 Speaker 3: How do you. 00:15:24 Speaker 1: Know who has the budgets? Like when you go knock on the door, let's pick a company, TikTok, Nike, Google, the ones, the ones that you partner. How do you know where to go? I got something I know I can affect my community. Somebody here needs a raise. How do you know who got the budget? 00:15:43 Speaker 5: Yeah, great question. 00:15:45 Speaker 9: So we're a nonprofit. So from a nonprofit standpoint, there's going to be a couple of roles that match up with people who got a budget. It's going to be your CSR people, corporate social responsibility, your impact people. So the impact side of things, which is usually the philanthropic arms of the corporations. Um, there's also marketing always got the money. So by the way, like the marketing people, they always have the budgets, but they're a little bit different to work with. So you have to figure that out. Now, if it comes to philanthropy, then you might be looking for program officers, um, or you might be looking for, uh, people who, uh. 00:16:26 Speaker 5: Are launching something new. 00:16:28 Speaker 9: So sometimes I'm looking for like, who's like, uh, who's launching a new thing and then who's ahead of that launch and what does that look like? And how does that align with our, with our entrepreneurs that we serve. I'm also keeping my ear to the street, and this is where your network. 00:16:44 Speaker 3: Comes into play. 00:16:45 Speaker 9: Now, it's silly enough, this is a bit of behind the scenes, this question you're asking me right now, because a lot of people try to figure this out. We have networked our way through global affairs or political affairs, but that's because I was based in D.C. 00:17:03 Speaker 5: I'm in L.A. 00:17:04 Speaker 9: Now, but I was based in D.C., And being based in D.C., I would go to Capitol Hill for different things or because different companies, we would go round. 00:17:13 Speaker 5: Tables, things like that. 00:17:15 Speaker 9: Or I was in that ecosystem. So think about one thing that people need to think about is your proximity to what kind of thing in your local area. Because I was in D.C., my proximity to the government was right there. Now, global affairs people don't directly have a budget, but they know all the people that got the budgets. So that's how we got some of the deals that we got because I was working my way through some of that Capitol Hill network. Also, your trade associations or things that you're a part of, things you're a membership of. I'm a member of a couple of different things

where I've gotten a couple of different opportunities to meet different people, navigate through different things. 00:17:56 Speaker 5: I think one of the. 00:17:58 Speaker 9: Hardest things as an entrepreneur is really to know what you're looking for. Once you land on that, you can kind of navigate your way to the person who's the head of it or the person who's the assistant of the person. 00:18:09 Speaker 5: Don't take anybody for granny. That's for sure. 00:18:12 Speaker 9: I tell people all the time, it was the janitor that let Fantasia back into that American Idol performance, her initial time when she got selected. Don't take anybody for granted. I'm speaking to everybody from the clean lady to the second, like whoever's the assistant, all those people can get you where you need to go. 00:18:32 Speaker 5: You just gotta be, you gotta be a people person. 00:18:38 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:18:38 Speaker 1: So I have this friend who's, she's an attorney, black girl, and she went to Howard and she learned, she got her law degree from Howard. And I remember her telling me this story of, you know, she was in, you know, school court, their mock courtroom. And She was, you know, she learned, you know, how you be fiery in the in the law room and you slam your fist on the desk. And her professor, who was a black man, said, we can't do that. They can do that. You can't, especially as a black woman. You cannot do that in the court. You're seen differently. And my question is this. Are there nuances about money? Because we say all money is green. People want to make money. You know, they don't care if you're black. 00:19:18 Speaker 3: White, green. They care about green. 00:19:20 Speaker 1: So my question is, are there nuances about money that apply to black people and finding success in it that may not apply to our counterparts? 00:19:31 Speaker 3: I think there's nuances in money, period. 00:19:34 Speaker 2: I could have financed my companies with pooking them. I could have got somebody from my community who has an interesting pedigree on business that nobody sort of know the details for. 00:19:50 Speaker 3: Him. 00:19:50 Speaker 2: He doesn't have a website and he could have, and the audience would figure the rest of this out. And I could have got some cash from homeboy to start my business or grow my business, but I couldn't pass an audit. I couldn't get out of the financials. The banks only look at me crazy. And I can't then position myself for the next level of growth on wall street. I can't go from main street to wall street because my partners are funky. 00:20:16 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:20:17 Speaker 2: So I've always had a philosophy that I, I want my partners to be bigger and my financial partners are also my partners. I want my partners to be bigger and more credible than I am. I mentioned, I didn't say anything about money bigger and more credible than I am. Oprah Winfrey gave me an award. the Use Your Life Award, and when her investigators came around, after she said she wanted to give me the award, investigators came around and said, we're going to make you feel a little uncomfortable. We apologize in advance. We've already gone through all your childhood. That's why we're having lunch with you. But Oprah has a rule. It's called the Oprah Rule. She doesn't put her arm around anybody who doesn't have as much to lose reputationally as she does. 00:20:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good. 00:20:58 Speaker 2: Man, that's my rule. So all my partners are bigger than me, more credible than me. And I build my companies, I build my operations with an institutional pedigree. So I make sure that I don't just have an accountant. I have an accountant and audit firm who is one of the big six or big 10s. or big 20 firms with a nice reputation and a pedigree. My clients, my partners also, my kind of companies I'm trying to do business with, use that company or a company like that. It's somebody you recognize. I make sure that my bank is somebody who has a recognized pedigree. It doesn't mean I don't put money in a black bank, which I do. It doesn't mean that I don't help the least of these God's children. 00:21:38 Speaker 3: But my lead institution. 00:21:41 Speaker 2: Is going to be somebody who says something about me, not me saying something about them. And my investors are going to have something more than money going on for them. Reputation in tech. So when somebody says, who's your partners, it means something. So yes, you've got to realize that you cannot curse out people in that boardroom. Um, if you're white, they'll just say, you're upset. If you're white, they say, if you're black, they say you're crazy. I was walking through the lobby of a hotel with my wife in this weekend. last weekend, and there was a white kid laying on the couch in the lobby of the hotel, had his shoes on, feet up, whole body on the couch with his head on his mama. 00:22:27 Speaker 3: And he's chilling. Nobody said a word to him. I said, baby, that was a black kid? 00:22:32 Speaker 1: You already know. 00:22:34 Speaker 2: Somebody would have come along and said, young man, you need to take your feet off that couch. 00:22:37 Speaker 1: That's absolutely right. 00:22:38 Speaker 2: You got to be twice as smart, twice as intelligent, twice as well-dressed, get up twice as early, stay up twice as late, be twice as clean. But it's made me better. Haters have made me better. I don't get mad at stuff like this. I use it as fuel, right? I take no for vitamins, right? A success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Over and around it, through it, I'm going to get to it. So as a result of that, I'm built to last. As a result of me making sure that I'm overclocked, overprepared, overtight, and never emotional, I can walk in any room and clean their clocks because they're lazy. They've taken the easy route. They haven't had the test that I've had. Talk without being offensive. Listen without being defensive. And

always leave even your adversary with their dignity. Because if you don't, they'll spend the rest of their life trying to make you miserable. It becomes personal. And they don't want you in the room half the time anyway. So they're trying to find some excuse to neutralize you and get you off the stage. You can say you don't like John Bryant. You're not going to say he doesn't qualify. 00:23:44 Speaker 1: So a lot of our entrepreneurs, black entrepreneurs particularly, are just figuring out how their dollars equal power politically. And some of them are maybe from this conversation realizing that they have power. And so what would you advise is like the smartest, let's say they have $ 1, 000 that they could deploy politically. What should they expect it to do? Mm-hmm. 00:24:09 Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, if you have a thousand dollars, I mean, one is do something. Let's just start there. Everybody can do something. Please do something. Even if you don't have physical money, you have, I'm sure, a tangible skill that can be utilized by a campaign. Let's say you are an artist and you can do flyers or you can create something for a campaign. That can be an in-kind contribution. So think about how your talents can be monetized as well to be supportive and not just your physical dollars. But let's say you have a thousand dollars. You know, maybe there is one candidate that is speaking to you. We like to say find who respects, reflects and represents your community well and try to help them get into office because you like their policy prescriptions. You think that they're going to be able to represent you well. Write them a check and write them a check early. As soon as you feel like, oh, yeah, I can ride with them. Cut them a check. And that could be the whole thousand dollars. Or you see a couple of people that you know what I need to give to my school board person. and my city council person, so I'm going to give them each $ 500. But guess what? With that $ 500, hey, I need a meeting with you. Hey, when you win the election, I need a meeting with you. Hey, do you think we can continue to be in dialogue? Hey, what's the number of your chief of staff? So when I have a question or I can call and reach out to you, people of service are supposed to be of service and approachable and there for you as a voter. So don't just give your money and walk away That is an investment in that individual who is hopefully your choice to invest back into your community. But you have to have that continual accountability relationship with them so that they're hearing you, but they're also responsive to what your needs are as well. And that should be attached with whatever contribution you give. 00:25:54 Speaker 1: If you can make a business case for that founder who's saying, hey, you know, politics ain't really my lane, at least right now, because I'm heads down building my thing. Like, what is that business, strategic business? mistake or, you know, what is the error they're making in judgment regarding their cap table, their industry, or the kids inheritance that they're trying to build this company to be able to provide? 00:26:16 Speaker 10: Yeah, everything, everything is touched by politics and not necessarily politics, but definitely policies. And so as you're looking at, you know, building a company, do you have the capital you need to get started? Well, if, An administration is constantly cutting access for small business owners to get the capital they need. Or if we have tax rates that are not favorable for new entrepreneurs, if we are cutting DEI programs and access for a woman-owned or a Black-owned business to have access to resources, that is a policy decision that was made. So therefore, you should care about who is making the policies because it may not be one that is benefiting you. So, you know, every single thing from what kind of water quality you have to what curriculum your kids may get in school is decided by somebody. So do you want to let the decisions that impact your life be decided by somebody who does not care about you or your community? Or do you want to have a say so on who that decision maker is? We say to change the laws, change the lawmakers. We're not happy with how the laws or policies are impacting our businesses, our community. then guess what? We have a say in who the decision makers are going to be in our lives. And that's how, whether it's from a business perspective or from just a personal perspective or a family perspective, it's how you should look at what politics is and how it plays a role in your life. 00:27:44 Speaker 1: Yeah. So much around the conversation we have when we talk about black wealth building is like individual moves like real estate, equity, crypto, even you operate at like a collective level. like what's the leverage that individuals leave on the table by never pulling the capital into like, you know, we're doing this together to build some political power. 00:28:06 Speaker 9: Yeah. 00:28:06 Speaker 10: You can look, I think a good recent example is you had, um, which all those things you just mentioned are touched by policies, crypto, all that stuff is touched by policies. Um, and too many of the policies are made by people that ain't black. 00:28:20 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. 00:28:22 Speaker 10: I can hold another conversation for another day. Um, What I would say is if you look at, I think, two really good examples is when with Black women, when with Black men, when Kamala Harris was running for office, you know, within 24 hours of her announcing she was running or, you know, she was taking over, I guess, and running, they raised each over a million dollars for her. So now that collective group of individuals has an opportunity to say, hey, on behalf of Black women or Black men from across the country, that have donated a million dollars to you first and early, we need to have a conversation with you. We need to have an audience with you because

this is the issues that we care about and we want to know what you're going to do about it. That's an example of why we started Collective. If Stephanie and Quentin were to walk into a room with the Democratic Party or with, you know, the leaders in Congress and say, hey, they may listen to us. But to have the backing of the collective PAC that has raised over $ 50 million from our entire ecosystem of organizations that have trained over 1,500 candidates and campaign operatives, to have the power of the collective behind us gives us a different platform for our conversations. where we're seeking accountability back to the Black community. And so I think that, and that can happen even on the local level. You see groups come together, concerned citizens for blah, blah, blah, blah, come together, pool their resources, pool their voices to then have a different type of conversation than you could perhaps as just one individual. Yeah. 00:29:59 Speaker 1: You know, I think I was talking to Representative Justin Pearson, I think it was about a week ago, and he was talking about showing up and being involved. And I think about, you know, I grew up in a church, and I remember you really only saw certain candidates when it was time to run. And I wonder what your thought is on how to not, that the engagement doesn't stop at the ballot box, but this is, you know, this is a year-round, you know, thing. How do you process that? How do you encourage? Because I'm sure there's got to be some training or some help, assistance in helping these candidates learn how to move, you know, as representatives and community leaders and et cetera. How do you think about that sort of thing? 00:30:40 Speaker 10: Yeah, and we actually so in 20, I think 18 was our first campaign school that we hosted. Like I just mentioned, we've we've trained over 1500 candidates and operatives there. And part of that is it's a cultural based training of how do you run and win as a black candidate. And part of that is to say, listen, as black candidates, we definitely can't take our community for granted and think that we just want to come in at the very end of a campaign and ask for their vote. But the same is true with with people outside of our communities. Like, you know, in my church, you just can't do it. If we haven't seen you all year, you can't come. 00:31:18 Speaker 1: You can't come. 00:31:19 Speaker 10: We're not allowing it because the expectation that we have said in the beginning is we need to be in relationship with you as someone who either is running from our community, like we should at least know who you are. 00:31:33 Speaker 8: We've seen you before. 00:31:34 Speaker 10: We know some of your work. And if we haven't, let's have a conversation so we can see where you stand on different policies as opposed to you just platforming with a speech. on Sunday morning because I didn't came for the word. I didn't come to hear you pontificate and probably not give me any policy solutions. So that's where that relationship comes into play and us having a lot of dialogue before they even get. 00:31:59 Speaker 2: To the pulpit. 00:32:00 Speaker 8: I think we have a collaboration problem. 00:32:05 Speaker 4: You know, I've acquired three companies in the last 10 years, and one of the reasons I was able to do that is because I view collaboration as a core strategic advantage that I have to my peers. Why do we need three different barbershops who all maintain the same overhead of leases and payroll and insurance and equipment and HR systems? And there's a lot of overhead. 10% to 15% of a business's cost is just overhead that every single business has to have. If you're all in one company, then it's that same HR person for the whole company, right? It's the same creative team for the whole company. At Blavity, it's the same talent team for the whole company. So we're able to get economies of scale because we decided to collaborate and bring other businesses in underneath the Blavity Inc. 00:33:08 Speaker 8: Portfolio. 00:33:10 Speaker 4: And that has allowed us to then spend more time doing our CEO task and less time doing the operating tasks. So if all those barbershops were able to say, you know what? I'm going to set my ego aside. It doesn't need to be called JoJo's Barbershop and Becky Q's Barbershop and da-da-da Barbershop. 00:33:26 Speaker 8: We're going to just be called Black Barbershop. 00:33:27 Speaker 4: And we're going to have three black barbershops in this entire city. And each one is going to be run by JoJo and them. But the back end administrative work is going to be centralized. How much more money could they have? How much more cash flow could they have? And also time, because you don't have three barbershops trying to figure out, barbers trying to figure out how to run a business when they set out to be the barbers. And that is, I think, one of the challenges is that it requires collaboration. Black folk, we love to collaborate on everything else. We collaborate at church. We collaborate on carpools. We collaborate on meals, family dinner. We collaborate on Funerals, we collaborate on weddings. We collaborate on so many things, fraternities, sororities. We are good at ruling by committee. We are good at coming together. But something about business, there's not that many Black acquisitions happening and Black mergers. And I think that has to do with ego. 00:34:29 Speaker 1: No, I'm going to use a sports analogy, which I shouldn't do. But there is, you know, you can tell a great athlete by if they make the people around them better. Not only are they doing great things, but the people around them are. 00:34:42 Speaker 7: And when I. 00:34:43 Speaker 1: Think about you, you are that person. You've been that person for me. You've been that person for other people who I know who are around you. People make more money when they hang around Morgan DeBond. They have more of these things when they hang around Morgan DeBond. And how should we then audit our circles? Because not everybody can hang around Morgan DeBond. So how can we, how should we audit our circle, you know, with an unbiased view of like, look, I know I like hanging around you, but this is probably not a wise investment of my time. 00:35:13 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:35:14 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:35:15 Speaker 4: There's something, there's a chapter in the book around people and the people in your life and the difference between mentors and advisors, right? 00:35:21 Speaker 10: Right? 00:35:22 Speaker 8: So I'm a lot of people's advisor. I'm your advisor. 00:35:24 Speaker 5: Right? 00:35:25 Speaker 4: If you want to make more money, you call me. For a lot of people, I'm their chief revenue officer as well. 00:35:31 Speaker 8: Like, you want to make more money? I'm going to tell you how. No, you still got to do the work. 00:35:34 Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah. 00:35:34 Speaker 3: Okay? 00:35:35 Speaker 8: So you got to surround yourself. 00:35:37 Speaker 4: If your personal life doesn't have those people who are motivating you and helping you get to the next level, that's okay. You know, I don't believe that everybody around you has to be transactional or add value to your life in that way. 00:35:49 Speaker 8: I'm actually completely cool with it. So all this social media that's like, audit your friends. Your friend circle is a reflection of how big. I don't believe that. I think that's * * * *. 00:35:59 Speaker 4: Not everybody in your life has to be adding value to you. You can hire and find advisors who can help you get to the next level. An advisor is someone who's already done it. And your advisors may be a podcast. Your advisors may be my book. Your advisor may be YouTube channels, right? Like there's so many free resources and cheap resources online. For you to solve a problem that you have from experienced people who've already done it. Experienced people who've already done it. I'm not talking about these people selling online courses where the biggest business they've ever run is the business that they're running on you. 00:36:34 Speaker 1: The online course, yeah. 00:36:37 Speaker 3: Okay. They're out there. 00:36:40 Speaker 8: So they are out there everywhere. 00:36:42 Speaker 4: So you really got to be careful trying to evaluate everybody in your life against what do they provide back to me. I think that it's important to not make everybody in your life responsible for your own development. You're responsible for your development. You're responsible for your growth. You're the person who's in the driver's seat of your life. So just like when I'm the CEO, if I have a deficit because I'm a bad people manager, it's not my employees' jobs to make me a better people manager. It's my job to go find the resources, to go find the executive coaches, to go read the books. 00:37:21 Speaker 8: And become a better people manager. It's the same thing in your personal life.