Authenticity and Legacy In Business Ft Fawn Weaver

you can learn from the podcast. Enjoy the episode. So once again, we have fawn Weaver. I'm gonna put the in front of that. You know how like Ohio State, they say the Ohio State, I'm gonna say the fawn Weaver, yeah, thank you. Um on this show. If you don't know about her, you're under a rock. I'm not even gonna waste time going over all the bio. Y'all got it ahead of time read a book. It will specifically Wait, wait, you can read this one. I'll be so grateful. I'm

always telling people to read books anyway. Y'all always see my books behind me. Here you go, and y'all see it was within arm's reach. That's what I'm saying. Like, only the ones I actually go back to are in arms reach. So, yeah, just putting that out there, and so many women are buying it for their their men, because it says whiskey. I said, y'all, you're

gonna have to couple the love with the whiskey. This is for women and men equally and and it's been amazing to me, though I will say about the response from men is that almost every man that has reached into me after having read the book has said they read it in two days, something that they had never done with a book before. So there is something I will say in the book that is calling to men, whatever that is I don't know, that keeps them from being able to put it down till they know

the end result of the story. You know what I think it is. I think you're very much like a do a big kind of person, right? When it comes to your roll out. I'm gonna be everywhere. I'm signing. I'm sorry we won't. We do 24 hours breaking records when it comes to the rollout, and that's the roll out the book. Let's talk about the whiskey and saying, I want to be in 50 states in two years, and everyone be like, not gonna

happen. But it did, when it came to being making sure that you were in the forefront, but because you were always on the plane, like you were at the meetings, like, it's like, no one's gonna say was one of the quotes no one's gonna say, my brand didn't work because of the strip. Distributors. Yeah, no one's gonna say that. Yeah, right. And I think a lot of like, women, of course, we always do a big but I think men,

I think it's the aspect of seeing how big you do it. And I do think that there's this misconception about where you came from, right? Like, I think. And you know what it is, I think a lot of times people see individuals who carry themselves well, and they're like, Well, let me, let me go look at their CV. I'm sure you got a hub, but in there I'm sure, I'm sure they started this billion with some million dollar loan. They don't think that. They don't expect to have someone who was given an

ultimatum at 15, shape up or ship out. And you said, Well, I'm gonna ship out. I'm gonna do that. They don't think to get someone who made it a point to like you. You mentioned it's a club Covenant House, and you had to go out and you either go to school or you go to or you find a job and you came back one day. Yeah, or is that not COVID house? I was it is Covenant House, and it was the very first day that I was there. That was my third home. My third and last homeless shelter was exactly

yeah. And you said, this is one of the moments when you realized you were different because people were you guys had to look for jobs. You got to go out look for jobs. And everyone's talking about like, man, it's just so it's just so hard, I can't find anything. And how many, how many jobs did you come back with? Phone Weaver, four, four, yeah, and three of them, by the way, and you just sitting here, like, I don't have these kind of

problems. I actually got multiple times, you know, a Covenant House, you do this night fire thing, you sit around a campfire, and that's how you connect and you talk, and that's what they did. Then I recently went to visit the one in in in Atlanta, and they have a campfire. And I was like, Oh, I remember that I was at the one in Hollywood, California, but, but still, everybody was

lamenting about that, and I didn't have that issue. But here's the thing, I dropped out of high school, but I never stopped reading, so my teacher became books to this day, when people ask me to be their mentor, I say, you don't need me. Every American Titan, every single one has written their blueprint before they died, or somebody did it after they died. Pick up a book, and now we really have no excuse with AI, because AI will just like, give you the synopsis. Tell me

exactly how John D Rockefeller built his business. Every challenge, yeah, every success. What mistakes did he make? And AI takes him three seconds to tell you how JD Rockefeller did it. I didn't have that benefit. I had to read a whole book on how JD Rockefeller did it. But I am, I am truly self taught. When I went back to school and graduated perfect GPA, summa cum laude, University of Alabama, roll tied for anybody that's out

there. But the reality is that was 30 years later, and an entire semester, they let me argue for the credits that all of the courses that I would be taking in that semester I could teach, and I argued and got all 30 credits. Hey, everyone, just a reminder that mind, your mental is not just a podcast. It is also a amazing community. If I do say so myself, it's phenomenal. I mean, you get more access to me. What more could you want in this life? So if you want to join the community, if

you're not already on the community. Go to my social media. My social media is the same Raquel Martin, PhD, and DM me the word community, so you can get details on joining this amazing, flipping community. You get more access to me. Y'all like, I'm a delight. All right. All right. Hope to see you there. So

what do you think in terms of whenever? Okay, I have this as a psychologist, and I used to do significant amount of assessments, and I could look at someone's assessment, like, three days of testing, be like, Oh, this person's an artist. This person is like, you know, I've always felt that, like the geniuses of the world, there's a reason why, most of the time they get written off, because you have to think differently to be an artist. You have to be able to be able to create

something out of nothing. To be an entrepreneur, you got to be okay going it alone. Yes. Have you found that to be isolating at times? Like, have you how have you dealt with that as a person? Because in order to go forward, you have to tell a lot of people, they have to look at you crazy a lot and be like, we're doing it, yeah, and they had to be willing to follow and lead. And that can be isolating at times. So I as an introvert, I wish people would let me isolate.

So to be clear, I was one of those people in coming out of COVID going no zoom is perfect. Why do we have to go back to in person meetings? We could see each other. We can hug like, you know? And so, yeah, no. So for me, isolation doesn't mean the same thing. And I think that what people when they're generalizing, they forget that more than 50% of the world are introverts. We're happy to be isolated, not to say that we don't. We don't need to have community. We do, but we choose

our community wisely. We choose community. Yes, that doesn't drain us. And so the people that I've chosen, they give me life. But when it comes to feeling isolated, I've never felt isolated. What I will say is the higher you go, the thinner the oxygen is, and there's less people that know how to breathe in that oxygen. And so you have to be really careful about having conversations when people are second guessing you from a lower oxygen level, because they can breathe, and you're having

to do the same thing. So it's like the when you are when you have Olympians that are marathoners, they will go up into the mountains and train, or they'll wear those masks that pull out some of the oxygen to emulate what it is like to be running in the mountains. The reason why you do that is, is because if you can do it at that level, then when you're at sea level, you're gonna smoke everybody who hasn't learned to

be able to run at such a high level. And so that that is the place where I don't consider it isolating again, because I'm an introvert, but what I do recognize is is going back and forth with people that don't understand what you're doing makes no sense. All you really have to do is to prove over and over again that in the end, the decision you made, it wasn't

understood, but it was right. And once you prove that a number of times, what happens with your team is they look at it and go, I don't know what she's doing, but I trust her, because I've seen her do this 10 other times Exactly. Yeah, I love that. I always tell people I love to travel, but two places, I'm not going this back and forth with you. Okay, so this is not it's not gonna be a thing. It's not gonna be a thing, honey. No, it doesn't involve a Centurion lounge. I'm not going,

honey. No, thank you. I totally get that, and I really appreciate you mention that as an aspect of like, introverts, because as psychologists, a lot of times people will, I'll see these articles, and people will be like, Oh, how to be less introverted. And I'm like, it's so interesting, the way y'all even framed that, because I've never seen an article that says extroverts. Have you ever thought about ways to make introverts feel more comfortable? It's all in the framing.

Look at all of the offices that popped up before COVID. It were these offices in which people didn't have walls, and they're like, oh my gosh, this will make people. Collaborative. I'm like, Yeah, 50% of them, the other 50% you're going to slow them down, because that's not the way we

work. So I'm in my home office right now my distillery. I have an office at the distillery that is four times as big as my office at home, and I go to that distiller to there when I have meetings, because otherwise it slows me down every time someone pops in to say hello. For an introvert, that gives energy for me when they pop in to say hello and see how things were going, that small talk, it absolutely is draining for me, because I'm

not wired to small talk. And the beautiful thing is, is most people who have been with me for a while, they know fawns not wire for small talk, even if you if you scroll through my social media feed, people are always like, Oh my gosh, you're almost always dropping gems. Yes, because I don't waste my voice, I don't waste my breath. If I'm going to say something, it's going to mean something. And so I personally don't understand small talk, and so we are a society that is trying to create

extroversion in everybody, and 50% of us. By the way, the majority of the people at the top of the Forbes list are introverts. You've always been in that realm. I've found that, like some of my colleagues, who do more speaking than they used to. Like, if we're coming from out of academia, they've actually converted a bit. It's, it's the more that they do these events, the less they're like, Yeah, I know I used to go to cocktail parties every week, but I do three speaking events a

month minimum. I don't even want to leave the house if I'm not doing it for work. Like I've I've noticed a conversion of people who have to be in a public space so much, who have to be in camera. So much being like, Okay, we'll do this for work, but if I'm not on the clock, don't call me okay. Like, I want to be in my bubble. But the thing is, and I'm unapologetic about it, like there are, I have a really good friends that are up in

Nashville. We've been trying to get together forever. And finally I said, Listen, the issue is is I'm traveling every single day of the week, for the most part. When I come home on Saturdays, that's when I'm getting caught up on emails and slacks and all the things that weren't time sensitive that I didn't get to during the week. So when I get to Sunday, and it's the Sabbath, I'm not interested in leaving. I want to

be in my VJs, in my ropes. So if you'll come to my house and I'm not getting dressed, putting on makeup, and I'm gonna be in my pajamas, we can have a blast. And and by the way, I am not cooking, I am going to order in and so what we have to do better as introverts is creating a world that allows us to thrive. Extroverts have done that from the beginning of America. We now need to be better about doing that for ourselves and helping extroverts to understand what brings us

joy. We haven't done that well before, and so I do that really, really well, and everybody around me knows I'm an introvert, and but that doesn't mean I don't love people. It doesn't mean that I don't love being around people I absolutely do. The best way I can describe it, though, is I'm essentially a Tesla. When I get to the end of that day, I gotta be plugged up or I'm not running the next day. Yeah, it doesn't mean that I don't like to be out and about. It doesn't mean that I'm not an

efficient car. It means that I have a time frame in which I can expend energy before it's gone. Yeah, I very much. For the longest I, you know, I've always thrived on, like, a small set of friends out for the East Coast. We have trust issues, and that's just what it is, right? So, like, we really do, like, what is it about New Yorkers? It is like, but you could be walking somewhere, somebody was trying to cozy up to you, and

it's because they about to rob you. You see what I'm saying. So you really, you can't be I'm not like, I was very much like, what you trying to have a conversation for what's going on? Did you have a question? What's to answer your question? But like, you need to take a step back, because I feel like you're trying to Jack me. It's just very much. I'm married. I'm married. I'm in Nashville because my husband's from

Nashville. Yeah, I married a local. Anytime I meet somebody here, they're like, I don't you, you're not from here, are you? You're super loud, you talk super fast, and you seem like you say pretty much everything I do. Life's too short. What like, you know? So it's very a different mindset. But I when I've always had a closer circle with friends when I started going into psychology and doing these events and stuff like that. I'm very good at the events, and my friends are

always like you. It's so funny. You good at these events, but you always say you don't like meet new people. You're a people person, but how? And my thing has always been, I like my people, right? And when you have such a good group around you, I just never seen the purpose of meeting, and it's a terrible I just never saw the purpose of being like, Oh, I got five really good friends. I don't I think I'm good for the rest of my life, but I've never felt a need to add, yeah, so I love

everybody. I don't really have a My people I love I love everybody. I love meeting people. I love being around people that don't. Look like me. Don't think like me. Different backgrounds like that. To me, I absolutely love but again, I gotta then come home and plug in my car. Yeah, that's just so it's, it's not a different bite. But also, I have five siblings, and so I never, I've never sought out friendships, because that's enough. That's enough. Like we have a great my siblings and I

have a great relationship. We love hanging out together. If you ever want to eat a really, really, really good meal, come around these Wilson kids, because we eat the whole time. It's like a part of our like, if we are saying, Hey, you all want to get together, that is the equivalent of saying, What are we eating? Like that, yeah. But we know, we know that about each other, right? And and so we we're able to speak a shorthand that doesn't need to

be explained. And so that's who I'm usually if I'm talking to hanging with is my family. But even then, we're on text 95% of the time, and that's just and that works for both my extroverted siblings and my introverted siblings. Although my introverted sibling, there's basically two of us and three extroverts and the other introvert, she puts us on mute. Listen. Some people will be like, they'll be like, can I text you? And I'm like, well, let's do a group me, because I can mute

that. I like they update the iPhones. But you didn't used to be able to mute these group messages, and I would just be like, is everything okay? You sent me five messages at 6am Are you safe? Don't do this like my sister Tracy, she muted the she muted the group permanently. And so she only pops in when she wants to, because when we start going back and forth about something, it could be funny

like yesterday. Christy joy, my little sister says she's got five kids, and they all basically look like her husband. They'll come out looking like her, but they will switch. So she sends all of five of her kids photos with each one, with her baby pic next to him. And she says, In case you're wondering what I'm doing this morning, I'm trying to see if any of my kids still look like me. So that chain was back and forth, and we're laughing and going, Nope, you lost that one.

Nope, you lost that one. You lost it. Tracy, meanwhile, is like, Y'all muted. I ain't seen none of this. No, I thought I totally get it. I very much. I call the myself who's just like, oh, there's no point in, like, engaging with people, my toddler self, and now I'm like, as an adult, grow up, you know, like, very one of the reasons why my favorite patients used to be angry teens, and I'm just like, oh, because that was

me. Like, if you weren't as someone who read books, I would just be like, this is a boring conversation, so I'm gonna go back to my books I don't enjoy, I don't enjoy this, and this will just be like, Yeah, I don't want to do this anymore, but that's very much my toddler. So it's interesting. You mentioned social media because I don't know if you know, but one of your clips is going a little, a little viral. You the one with Jordan, yeah, the one with Jordan talking about not

believing imposter syndrome. And I stitched it, and I was like, There's no such thing as imposter syndrome. Jordan. I want y'all to understand this. Oh, Morgan. Morgan, Morgan, Morgan. Devon, yeah, okay, yeah, Morgan. I'm sorry. Okay, please, when I see you at brunch, do not cuss me out. I am so sorry. She lives in Nashville, too. So of course, I was like, you know, as a psychologist, I want you to understand it doesn't exist. I want I said, I've never met a

black person who's had imposter syndrome. I've never met a black woman, black man, black person. Yeah, what I have had people have is a justified reaction to an oppressive environment. So how are you gonna react to that oppressive environment, right? Like, are you going to be? Like, oh, they're asking. Why are you here? Where else would I be? Where else am I supposed to be?

Yeah, I'm supposed to be where I'm at. So when people mention, like, imposter syndrome, I'm just like, well, the way they do that is, like, if it's imposter syndrome, I need to work on myself. But if it's a justified reaction to an oppressive relation, an oppressive environment, you're like, Oh, this isn't a me problem. This is a them problem. And I need to get out. I don't need to be and I need to get out. Get out or burn it down and build my own Yeah, but that's what you need

to do. You want to be in that you feel called to be in, that you know is helpful for you to be in and be uncomfortable in that space. Absolutely not, yeah, and that so many people remember when WebMD came out, and people would just start throwing stuff in there, and they'd be diagnosing themselves. That's what I listen I'm happening with imposter syndrome. Is it syndrome? Looking for people and and and, and people are finding it. Because everybody is saying, I

really gotta work on this imposter syndrome. No, you don't. It's not a thing. Yeah, I know women D, they very much will be like, Oh, you're, you're gonna have a, you have a stomach ache, and it's gonna be your last, it's your last stomach ache, because I hate to be the one to tell you, girl, but you got an ulcer that's about to erupt. And it's like, wait, wait, a pet. So they'd be like, No, that's gonna be your last stomach. It could be like, it's the end. Yeah, no, I don't believe in it.

And I think a lot of the reason why a lot of times, a lot of people have been commenting and looking at it just being like, I've never heard a psychologist say they don't believe in a syndrome. I was like, because it's not a syndrome. People don't realize that the research on imposter syndrome as a phenomenon was done by two European American psychologists who were researching middle and upper class European American women and why they didn't feel like they belonged in their work

environment. Does any of that fit the people that they always trying to say have imposter syndrome? Yeah. So if the science did, it wasn't based on us, why are we applying it to us? Well And and, and more and more importantly, it was so limited in scope. And so you're now taking on something that was so limited in scope period, not even just in the group of people that it was. I mean, this is not a this is not a study that's

been vetted, and I just think it's a bunch of nonsense. And so I say it. Well, yeah, you should. I also thought it's a bunch of nonsense, and I and I said, agree, because sometimes we

have, sometimes we forget. One of the things that I gravitated towards when with your story and talking about why you decided to look into uncle nearest in the first place, I wrote it down because you said, if this was another story where it was the fact that we were being taken advantage of or we weren't treated right, I wouldn't have been interested in it, not at all. But that's not what this story was. Can you share more

about that? Absolutely. So the story at the time that I I saw it and first read about it was the same time everybody else did. It was the cover of The New York Times International here in the US, it was on the cover of The New York Times food section, and the headline was, Jack Daniels embraces a secret ingredient help from a slave. And you had this photo of Jack Daniel which all of us know what he looks like, whether or not we drink Jack, we know what he looks like. People around the

world knows what he looks like. So the question was, who's this African American to his immediate right? How did that person get such a prominent position in the only known photo that Jack has ever taken with other people? And so for whatever reason, we as a culture, really, it started on Black Twitter very quickly, determined. And when I say within hours, I mean hours, very quickly, determined, without any research done whatsoever, that Jack Daniel was a slave owner.

He stole the recipe, he hid the slave, and I saw it, and thought this photo was either taken at in the 19th century or the top of the 20th century, if a famous white man, which he was already, at that time, not famous around the world like he is now, but certainly where he was located. If a famous white man chose to put an African American man to his immediate right, he was not trying to erase that person. He was making a statement. So I wanted to know what that statement was, and began diving

into it. And the more I learned, the more I was convinced that Jack Daniel was quite possibly the first business ally that we know of. Yeah, especially since you mentioned you had to, you got the full photo. And when you zoom out, what's the difference in the in the full photo versus the one that most people see? Is it seated the center position of the entire photograph to the African American Jack is off center. The center of the photo is George Green, nearest green sun,

exactly like that's and it's the framing of it, right? Because just simply by cropping and it's like, oh, it's to their right. You zoom on it's like, no actually, dead center. Dead Center. Where do we put the most important piece, if we taking a picture with grandma or great grandma that we want to keep forever at Thanksgiving, where do we make sure? Where do we make sure they are and they're in the dead center? Because every time so so what it said to me was, Jack wasn't trying to hide him.

He was trying to make sure America would never be able to erase him. And so then my question became, if Jack didn't want him erased, that means he was very significant. So I want to know the significance. That's what drew me into the story.

Yeah. And I really appreciate that. I also appreciate the when you mentioned, like, the aspect of erasure, it brought me back to one of your advocacy when, when I when I want to learn about people, I not only read the things that they've written, which I really always appreciate when y'all write your own books, because when you write your book, so I can just be like, Okay, I start with the book, yeah. So before I ask for a

guest, I start with I'ma start with the book. But also, like the interviews is you, you are just you go into detail about so many different aspects. But when you mentioned erasure, it brought me back to one of your interviews, and the top you were talking about charcoal, yeah, and the process when it comes to whiskey, and the filtering process. But then you also brought it back to, there's a cycle when it comes, when I think of charcoal, I also think about my suicide attempts, yeah.

And you mentioned because they also had to use charcoal. I think you said in your second attempt, yeah. And I was just like, the way, the way you framed that, like the the fact. That you mentioned this as being a mission, the fact that you state that the reason why this is amazing, and what's your secret ingredient, you always say, God, but your ability to

kind of, like, put this cycle of just being like. When I think of the charcoal, I not only think about it in terms of we, we need this to make the whiskey, but I also think about the aspect of like, when I realized that I had a purpose on being on this earth, yeah, and that was during this this second attempt, absolutely well, what? What was being filtered out of my stomach? What was used to filter out the impurities in my stomach is the same thing that we use to filter out the impurities in

whiskey. So that's why people will be sitting on and tipping on Uncle nearest all night and wake up the next morning and not have a headache. Is because we've removed those things that would give a person a headache. Now you add sugar to it, you add carbonation to it. All bets are off. But if you're just sipping on Uncle nurse and you and you and you're not going overboard to a place where you're dehydrating yourself, it has no

impact in that regard. And and that's the reason why. And so I will say this is the beauty about having a really, really great editor of a book, is she's actually a person who who pulled that out. I didn't, I never put the two and two together. And I remember going back and reading it for edits and going, Oh, that's profound. I but I'm not the one who made that connection. She did. It is amazing because you, you stated that, like you decided,

if I, if this, can't take me out, nobody can. I'm meant to be nobody, nobody, right now. I mean, what I what I'm doing, like, right? I thought you were talking I've had a few things go viral in the last few weeks, and and one of them is this tequila takedown I'm doing because most of the tequilas we drink in America, people think it's clean. They think that, you know, their 1942 is is top top tier, which is what I thought,

or their class of soul is top tier. So it's had all of the the the fat, the sugar, the carbs, all that stuff distilled out, which is what is supposed to happen. And most of us don't realize when we're buying something that says 100% blue agave. Blue Weber agave, that for many of the of the most popular brands, yes, they distilled out the sugar, but then on the other side of it, they went back in and put Agave

back in, like, the same stuff we buy from Whole Foods. It's sugar and and I don't have an issue with it, if I knew that's what I was consuming. And so I damn you know tequila, take down three parts. The third part is going up as soon as soon as you and I

get off of this and, and, but the first two went viral. And, I mean, folks in the agave community, mad, mad, that's it, y'all that you can't become the number one spirit in America and not tell us that we're consuming something with additives and sugar. It's cool if we choose that, but we should be we should

have the option. We should know what we're consuming. So there, in that regard, all of a sudden, everybody around me is, like, scared because of the cartel and and how you know much involvement there is there, and the the Mexican tequila government, and how strong arm they are and and this is, this goes back to my thing. I said, Listen, if they want to get to me, they're going to have to go through guns in Georgia, guns in Alabama, guns in Tennessee, sharp

shooters on my own property. And if they can go through all three, they still gotta get through God to get to me. And that's just my mentality. So everybody was really afraid when I started this series that harm, physical harm, could come to me. And I was like, Y'all, can't, you can't hurt me without going through God. And I don't know that I would have that level of strength without having tried to take myself out twice and been like, oh crap God, don't is not even letting me take me out. So

he certainly isn't going to let somebody else take me out. Do you think that mindset is necessary to in the decision to become an entrepreneur anyway? Because one of the clips I saw you share was just the fact that, like, don't go in entrepreneurship without a strong SWOT analysis. If you if you don't look at this business plan and want to talk yourself out five times, don't do it, yep, and it's absolutely it's

absolutely accurate. Because I don't care how amazing the business is that you want to go into, you are going to run into so many surprises, so many challenges that can knock you off your game that can end your company if you don't keep going. And for us, as black women, we are the number one group starting businesses, but we're also the number one group failing at business. And a part of that is not having the business plans with the SWOT analysis, just jumping in and

going, I have a good idea. I'm going to go for it and not doing the planning. Another part of that is, is that if you, if your life has shown that you're the quitting kind, entrepreneurialism is not for you, because there are going to be so many things on a daily basis that are going to cause you to want to quit. So unless you have that in your body, to not that not quit bone, if you don't have a not quit bone, you need to work for somebody else.

I also think there's that the thought process of, like, I want this to be my legacy, like I want my name to be out there. And you mentioned that if nobody remembers fawn Weaver, in two, three decades. I don't care at all. So, you know, one of the things I've discovered is a lot of a lot of people make really bad decision, because they're living for their obituary.

They're living for what people will say when they're gone. And instead, and by the way, it speeds up their timeline, instead of just saying, You know what, however, the Lord opens the doors, whatever he decides is for me, is for me, this, this amazing pathway that he's created for me, I'm going to make the decision to choose the direction that he wants to go in. What ends up happening is, if you're living for your legacy, you short change that, because you don't know how long

that's going to take. And so then you start forcing things. And for me, I literally, when I'm gone, I do not care if the name faune Weaver is remembered at all. And there's an enormous freedom to that that I have found a lot of a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of people in this oxygen level they don't have. I was literally just speaking to a group of there

were about 100 people. And I go, and I'm paid to speak to people all over this country and, well, really all over the world, but this particular group, 100 people, $160 billion in that room, and the question they had for me was, how do they find purpose? Because that's what you lead

with. You know, that's that that, like the underlying thing of all your interviews and all your stories is like, Oh, this is what I was called to do. Yeah, everything you do in every season when you are aligned with what you were called to do in that season, you're in your purpose, because you are your purpose, the the challenge, and you see it all the time, and it's probably a lot harder for

you, because you got to peel back all these layers. But most people in life show up as representatives of themselves. Oh, masking, uh huh. You can't be a rep for yourself and be in your purpose. Your purpose is attached to you, personally, authentically. You literally cannot be in your purpose and be

a rep of yourself. And so I always try to get people, if you do nothing else, peel back to being who you were created to be authentically, because that is your purpose, and then being in every season, being where you're supposed to be, and doing what you're supposed to do in that season. And how do you know what that thing is that you're supposed to do? That thing will come knocking on your door, if you are you, if you are authentic, and it will connect with the for me, I always tell

people, I'm I'm falling seven years old. Realized that child who refused to read non fiction books because all she wanted to read was every every page of the Encyclopedia Britannica that is me to this day. You are not going to get me riled up on social media about something you didn't do research on. Everybody is up in arms, a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, and I'm going to go and do my own research and decide to bypass that conversation altogether. Why? Because that seven year old Fauci she got a

whole thing of Encyclopedia Britannica. Remember at that time, I'm almost 50 years old, so at that time, the encyclopedia people were coming door to door to sell them. Oh, if you remember the letters, there was so much they'd be split into two. So it'd be like, it'd be like, SM, through, you know, sn, through the type of thing. And so I, I would get lost in Encyclopedia Britannica, and I only wanted to spend my

time on things that were non fiction. I believe that that has greatly benefited me in my life. Do you think that authenticity is more difficult for individuals in the black population who have to deal with this realm of like respectability politics, because your story about how you're sharing about how you had to answer the the phone. It's a beautiful day at the Wilson residence. Well, when I was a kid, and I didn't do that very

long, yeah, yeah, I didn't. You didn't do that very long. And you mentioned the fact that the first thing you said was, what? What if it wasn't a beautiful day? Yeah. And why do I have to say this? I wouldn't answer the phone, and so mom and dad would be like, fawn, pick up the phone. No, because it's not a beautiful day, and you want me to pick up the phone and say it's a beautiful day. At the Wilson house, beautiful day at the Wilson household. And so that I you know, I do believe

that me leaving home at 15 was my greatest blessing. I believe that to this day, because around the time that people would have been so focused on molding me, i. Moved into an environment where people did not care about molding me. They didn't care about me enough to think about molding me. And that was when I when I moved to the hood where you don't like the parents are not trying to hoard over their

kids and all the rest of that stuff. And so for me, I left a beautiful, huge home in Pasadena, California, and moved to Jordan, downs and watts, and I felt so great with them, roaches and my food stamps, where I could buy honey buns every day, microwave them for 20 seconds and it tasted like a cinnamon roll like that. Felt comfortable to me. Why? Because I was insistent on being me, something that's not realized when it comes to the black community a lot, right? Like

when you mention, how do you find purpose? A lot of people, they're calling up, freaking up representation of themselves that's masking that. Yeah, the whole Oh say it's a good day, even if it's not a good day, that's because black people are taught respectability politics. It doesn't matter how you feeling. We need to put off this, this image of yourself. And one of the things that you mentioned a lot, you're, you're free and grace, is just being like this. I'm gonna be this is

who I am. This is who I am. Of love. I come from a place of grace and and so my words reflect that. But make no mistake about it, you're gonna know how I feel, you're going to know what I think, you're going to know what I believe. And that's the choice that I made very early on, and I've never

wavered in that. What tips do you have for individuals who look like us, who feel as though that's going to cost them their job, if I if I become if I act the way that I want to act, and I actually share things, and I critically think and I ask questions, which are all aspects of higher learning, guys. And one of the reasons why I say my kids can go toe to toe with me is if you're asking a question that's not being disrespectful, that's not talking back, you should ask questions. If you

can't ask questions, can't ask questions of me. How are you going to ask questions of the world when they do stupid stuff? We've always done it this way. How are you going to build what kind of messaging would you say to these people? Like, well, I'm going to lose my job if I do that. I can't I can't just like, that's disrespectful. Work toward a company that embraces that. There are plenty of companies at this point in

America. It's what I love about Gen Z Neil, they're like, we're not gonna be fake for you, and like we're not, and if you try to force it, guess what? We're not showing up. Wait and I'm gonna quit on social

to you. You're going to learn on my feed that I quit and so. So I do think that this prior generation that boxed people in are not going to do well with their companies if they continue to so you might as well spend the time instead of being frustrated, do your work as paying your bills, but also be looking for the cultures in the communities that embrace you as

you are. As an African American guy who works for me in a market that is majority African American, but there is still a very large, wealthy white population, and I would watch him shape shift, and I literally had to sit him down. And I said, Don't do that. And he's like, Yeah, but they won't understand me. Yes, they will show up as you at all times. And if anybody

has an issue with that, keep it moving. And I remember him saying to me, because he likes to call me boss lady, and I remember him saying to me, Boss Lady, you know, this isn't anything I've ever heard in my career. It's going to take me a second to be able to do this. I said, I'm okay with that, but I need you to show up as you. And then when I I'm always with with my team members their families. And so when his wife was around, I was like, did he tell you? I told him he need to stop being

somebody who he's not and show up as who he is. He's an educated black man with a master's degree from Morehouse. Show up exactly who you are, with your culture, with your background, allow people to learn from you, but if you're shape shifting into who they are or who they expect you to be, they can never learn from you. And the way that we are going to grow more in this country, in this society, is we have to get

people they don't have to respect us. I don't care if you respect me, but I do want you to actually understand who I am. And I can't do that if I won't show you who I am. And it also takes too much energy. One of the things my husband says a lot is I, I underestimate other people's processing speed when it comes to like, doing things. I was like, Well, I think fast and I talk fast. And my friend, she mentioned, she was like, Well, you don't really spend a lot of

energy with masking. And I don't think y'all realize, like, creating these avatars of yourself, that's taking energy, absolutely it's taking energy from your brain. You're wondering why you can't complete this task. You more so concerned about like making sure your hair looks appropriate, or making sure you're saying a certain way, or making sure you look the way that they want you to, where you could actually be critically thinking a solution that will fix the issue that they complain

about in the first place. I don't, I don't spend a lot of time masking. I'm just like, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna bring out. We're gonna problem solve. We're gonna create. Think, because my energy always goes directly to that. People who think that it's really going to help you grow in your environment, you don't even realize your potential because you're capping it, because you're spending so much mental energy, yep, saying, How am I going to Okay, so this is how I

think about the solution in my brain. But how do I put it into my my my translator to make it come out the way I think they're going to receive it. You put a cap on everything. When you do that, I'm able to process fast, because I really am just like, oh, this is what came into my head. This is how I process it. This is how I'm gonna walk through it, right? And I'm able to problem solve very, a lot faster than most people for the same reason, because where's my I'm not gonna translate. I'm

gonna be like, you understand what I'm saying? Yeah, cool. Let's go with it. Let's Yeah, this whole new thing of people saying, so I hear what you're saying is, and then they repeat back to you every I was like, who taught that? Come on, y'all, who taught that? Why? Why do we just teach people to waste time? Yeah, so, so, yes, I do think that that over the years, we've gotten information that isn't the best for us, and if we just focus on being authentically us.

But the key though is is coming from a kind place, a coming from a place of kindness, from a place of love, pull every fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, coming from those places, then your words, even if they hurt someone, that's not your problem. And that's it's, I think it's the best thing, because when you mentioned coming from Galatians, I really like the fact that you say some people will have a problem with you, saying, you know, I drink whiskey every day, and I'm also a God fearing

woman, and God is at the backbone of this. And they're like, Well, the Bible says not drinking. No, the Bible talks about drunkenness exactly. I will. I don't, don't go toe to toe with me on the Bible. I know that's nobody will invite me to come on. I'm like, show me the show me the passage. I just want to see it. I just want to see it. Because just you don't even have to show me multiples. Give me one. Give me one, where it's talking about drinking instead of drunkenness, not the same

thing. Yeah. And then explain to me why God chose the first miracle that he chose for Jesus. That wasn't just that he his mother asked him to make wine for this wedding. That's the way that we sell it in the church. No, his mother insisted that he make wine for a wedding that had run out of the wine. And in Galilee during that period of time, running out of wine was such an embarrassment, because you'd have so much of it, and so

you never run out of wine at that time in Galilee. So that means that those people had to have been drinking so much so she wasn't asking them to make wine for a party that was dry, that people were sober. She's asking them to make wine

for people. And how do we know this? Because the bridegroom comes to Jesus, or comes to the to the actual group, and says, Most of most of these weddings, the people put out the good stuff first, but you waited until everybody had been drinking to put out the good stuff. And I'm like, I'm sorry. Let's rewind on this. So, yes, show me your scripture, which doesn't exist. But can we just sit here for

my mom anytime? Because my dad, he drinks beers at times, and he'll talk about my mom when she drinks wine, and she'll be like, Jesus turned water into wine. My mom is a God fearing woman, yes, okay. She said Jesus turned water into wine. Yeah, he absolutely. And tell her to add the line for people who had been drinking for three days, you know, like, what do you you're not about to out scripture her every time she just like, okay, that's not

happening. I'm the same way. I don't go to bed without having read the Bible that day, some portion of it. And so, no, don't, don't. Don't do that like someone. I did an interview with someone recently, and they were talking about the fact that women, women want want love, and men want respect. And I said, Oh, yeah, so that ain't biblical and and I said, Listen, so let me, let me because, listen, we coming towards time.

So let me cannot get into the mental implications of the patriarchal thought process of being like we don't want, we don't want respect to because a lot of times when I talk about black love, and they're like, Well, you got to love the black community. My black love is also accountability. So don't expect me to just blow smoke up your behind. I could be a psychologist and also be like, No, that was wholeheartedly your fault, and my black love is accountability.

I was just, I was speaking to the chief network yesterday in DC, or two days ago, whenever I was there and and the the person was asking me the question said, Yeah, I've heard you say, because people always say, you know, I'm not playing checkers. I'm playing. Chess, but you tell people you're not playing chess, you play and go and and so I explained to this audience of women how patriarchal the game of chess is. The game of chess the nature is every piece on the board is sacrificed to protect

the king, including the queen. So we grow up thinking the game that we are supposed to be mastering is the game that protects the king at our expense. I don't play chess. I play Go. That's about expanding territory. And so we have to even change and question the things that we did when we were younger that we thought was helping us to become more strategic, because then, when women, when the queen is sitting across, negotiating with the king, what is her instinct to

do? Protect the king? Why? Because we learned how to play chess. I love that. Well, I want to end on one, one thing, because, um, I don't think that the and let me make sure my information is correct. The spirits industry as a whole was based in, like, a lot of it was back with illegalities, right, like the mafia, right? Like, in terms of during Prohibition. So, during Prohibition, right? Yeah, yeah. And there's still, there's very much still residue of that.

The only way, the only reason I believe God chose me for this industry is, as my husband would say, foreign you got hood tendencies. And I listen, and I literally had conversations with people, and I go, you don't want to go toe to toe with me in the boardroom. Why? Because I got hood tendencies. I love that. Okay, so, and that's why it's so important, like, because, when you mentioned the tequila aspect and you walking into these rooms, I don't I think people see it as

just a business, but it's not just a business. No, there's very much residue about how this system had been run during Prohibition, and there's still aspects of that. Can you share with everyone why tequila is why are you doing this? Why the aspect of thinking of tequila and that takedown is so important to your brand. Like, is there anything happening with tequila that, like, why this? I'm not starting at tequila

ground. I have no desire. And I tell people, the reason I have no desire is that I don't believe if you, if you don't own the land, I don't believe you own the brand. I believe, Oh,

that's the other thing I wanted to talk about. Okay, can you talk about that until you see me walking the grounds of Jalisco and buying agave, which is impossible to do, is to go into there, and maybe down the road, that may be the case, where I could go in there and buy a distillery and and, but until that happens, which I don't see that happening in the next decade or so, until, until that happens, you're not seeing a tequila coming from me.

The tequila takedown was very simple. I had been drinking Don Julio 1942 in class size, for years, thinking that what I was having was as pure as the bourbon I make was as pure as Uncle nearest. And then I learned recently that not only were they adding agave and glycerin and all the rest of this stuff, which takes it from being what uncle nearest is, fat free, gluten free, sugar free, carb free, it's that's what, what in its purest state. That's what tequila is. That's what

vodka is, that's what, what, what bourbon is. And so I learned that not only was I not drinking pure tequila, but even more importantly, is their governing body had recently told all additive free tequilas, they weren't allowed to say they were additive free. So they're protecting the big guys, the Don Julio 1940 twos of the world. And they're protecting them at the expense of the little guys, because the little guys, the only differentiator that they've ever had to promote their

product is we're additive free. Now the governing body has said, if you even claim to be additive free, we will find you to next year, like, and so I was like, Oh, y'all are trying to take down the little guys. You can't touch me. So yeah, how about I'm about to showcase all of the added to free. So my takedown wasn't a tequila as the industry, it was a big tequila that has been lying and saying that tequila was more pure than bourbon. Okay, so I'm gonna, I want to actually end on the own, the

land, own, the brand thing, because you also attribute. You got the land first, first of all, and there's so there's so much serendipity, trademarks first, and and, yes, and the online real estate first, because if you don't have any online real estate, the URLs, the social media handles, you

don't own the brand. Yeah. And there's so much serendipity on the fact that like being shown the land, yeah, where you bought everything, in terms of the person who's that, the realtor saying, you know, if you ever decide to do something with this. I will come out of retirement, yep, to to help you, to make sure you get it right, because they were the descendant of Jack Daniels. Yeah. Like, you can't, you can't make that up,

but you mentioned, yeah, own the land, own the brand. Yeah, is something that a lot of companies black on. Companies that are struggling with the liquor business. Like, it's because you own your land, like, no matter what, it's always going to start there, can you see? And, yeah, it's not even just the

liquor business. Like, there's a really popular, well, I guess you know this is across the board, but you see it all the times with restaurants, you'll have a restaurant that has been popular growing for a decade, two decades, and all of a sudden they're closing. Why? Because their landlord decided not to renew their lease. So you just spent a full generation building a business that you are now closing. But meanwhile, that entire time that you've been renting from that landlord,

you've been increasing the value of their property. That's what I mean by that. That's my question. How would you apply that to other individuals and entrepreneurs to understand that that's you attribute your your success for so many things, but you always say, just like you mentioned, I'm not going into tequila until I can own the land. Yeah. How can people think about as that is a way to either keep going or stop until you can own the land. Like, what does that look like in other

businesses? It may it may just be digital. So, for instance, people that are building their their businesses on YouTube. Let's take what's the gal's name, Candace Owen. Is it Candace Owen? Really, she's like a fire brand, like people love her hate her African Oh yeah, and she's in Tennessee now too. Yeah, is she really? Yeah, she her, Well, I don't know. She still has the show, but yeah, she she was in Tennessee. For

me, I didn't know that. So, yo, she does have a show, but recently where she makes all this money on her YouTube videos, and YouTube decided to demonetize her platform, so now she can't make any money there. This is what it means by this. If your entire business is set up where you're having to go through something you don't own, you don't own the brand. So if you don't so if it's if you two can take if YouTube goes down and it takes your business, you don't own it. If Instagram goes

down and it takes your business, you didn't own it. And so the online real estate is, at the very least, making sure people that is where people can find you. So if, if Instagram, I mean, I'm on Instagram every day, so much stuff, but if my account on Instagram goes down, Uncle nears isn't going to lose business, because I'm going to be in the press every single day talking about why Instagram took me down, and Uncle nears people, you know what I mean? Yeah, and so that's what I mean

by. You gotta own the land, either it's whether it's online real estate or physical real estate, whatever it is that if somebody else makes a decision to stop allowing you to do something through their platform, and you can no longer do business you didn't own it to begin with. Yeah, social media is renting your audience. You need an email list. You need to purchase your URLs if they don't allow you to do it on so if on Instagram, be like, okay, but y'all know where my website is,

right? I be streaming live from the website from now on, because you're not about to take this for me, yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, father. We have so many amazing tidbits. I really wanted to focus on, not only the entrepreneurship, but the fact that, like you work in your purpose. I tell so many people like, it's not about a job, because my purpose is to increase the mental wealth of the black community. But I can

do that as a psychologist. I can do that as a speaker. I can do that as an author. When you align yourself with the purpose, no matter what, yeah, you make sure your purpose is driving what you're doing. If so many people are getting like, oh, I want this job. Okay, what happens if you lose that job? Does that mean you have no purpose? Well? But this goes back to my belief that I don't believe purpose has anything to

do with what you do. Purpose is who you are, and everything that you do is because you recognize who you are. So the purpose is you, the purpose is you well. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Everyone remember to be kind to yourself. Two steps forward and one step back is still one step forward. That is just math, and have it the rest of your day.