Not What It Post To Be - The Business of Belonging (Guest: Ryan Wilson) - TMI

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Tamika D.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Mallory and it's your boy, my son a general.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
We are your host of t M I.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, motivation and inspiration.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
New Name, New Energy. What's up, my son, Lennon?

Speaker 3 (00:16):
How you feeling.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
It's a new year. It's a new year. The holidays
are actually coming to an end. This is the fastest
year that ever happened in life. I never I've been
through some years while I said, who the year flew viba?
Not like this year. December one was last week. I'm
telling you. I'm telling you that at nighttime, something is

(00:38):
happening to the the like the hours something.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
No, I'm serious.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
And for a person like me that wakes up, I
go to sleep around one, I wake up at four
and then I wake up at seven something.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Every single day of my life.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
I feel like I don't know if something happening, because
how do days just move? Maybe it's as you get older,
because I bet you young kids don't feel the way
that we feel. They got to go to school and
they don't feel the way fled.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, they feel like the time is moving so slow,
you know. They feel like it's my son be like
school again, school again, but yes, it's school again.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
Yeah, I guess I think that's what it is, is age,
because you know that your time on the earth is getting.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
You wanted to last longer. Kids wanted to move fast
so they can get to summer. Kids just want to
get to summer.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Time, their birthday fun.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
They just want to get straight to funk. We just
want things to just relax and be easy. And you
know what, I'm not even mad that this year went fast.
I ain't even mad this year needs to go fast.
The next threek we need them to just go We
needed to move fast.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
I hear you.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
I get your point that we have to move quicker
through this crazy administration that we have and just all
the things. But I do feel like life moves so
fast that the little things sometimes are missed, like the
little activities, the little moments. It's so hard. Like I

(02:22):
looked up the other day and I'm like, dang, I
haven't talked to my parents in like three days. And
I just talked to them like three days ago. We
were on the phone, so I thought we were speaking.
But then when I thought, I'm like, damn, it's been
three days or the last time I was actually physically
with them, was like the week after things given and
to me that was the other day, right, because I

(02:47):
just saw them like it was Thanksgiving and a week
later or.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Not, because I'll be saying I was like the other day.
They'd be like, no, that was two three weeks ago,
like what it wasn't Yes it was, and then you
start doing it like.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
It was the time, but it is. It's definitely an
age thing.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
But it also it just feels kind of like because
of the pace that we keep up in the you know,
in the world, all the businesses and all the things
that we do, it's just a lot, you know. And
I posted something on whatever someday last week, you know again,
in all the days that just said that I've kept

(03:26):
a lot of shit afloat in crazy conditions, like all
kinds of things happening around us, and I've been able
to keep all the things for.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
A whole year.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
Like it's a lot that goes into managing through heavy winds,
through you know, ice storms, through and of course I'm
using those things as examples of what it has felt like,
you know, through extreme heat waves, like you you have

(04:01):
so many different turnovers and to be able to get
to the end of the year and look back and
know that there was only a few people who were
able to help you. It's not a lot of people
that you.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Could say helped you. You know.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
I'm grateful though, for every single person who had showed
up to support me in twenty twenty five and all
my life, but in twenty twenty five, because even though
it may have been a few people, each one stands
as ten thousand. That's doctor Maya Angelo said, I come
as one, but I stand as ten thousand.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
So that means that every help in hand.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
All ten fingers went into supporting your dream, buying your book.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
You know, all the people.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
Who in the year of twenty twenty five, from February
until even now, have done book events for me, have
purchased the book four and five times, sent it around
to people, thousands of people supporting the work, you know,
and I have great gratitude for it. But I can
tell you that there's some days when you just or

(05:09):
you could, you could just cry.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
You know.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, it's a lot, man, But like you said, we've
done it, and we've done it with the grace of God,
and we've done it with our village and we're here.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
We are here, TM, I is absolutely here.

Speaker 4 (05:25):
I you know, you always say that you're grateful for
all the people who support our show, and I don't
know if I say it enough, but I truly am
grateful for the team of people who invest in this show,
who believe in it, who keep it going.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
From day to day.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Shout out to the Black Effect Podcast Network, who has
been consistent about a strong partnership with us, you know,
Charlemagne of God, of course, our sister Dolly, and the
whole team, Taylor and Dwayne and all the people over
there that we don't even know who are keeping the
wheels turning so that the Black Effect Podcast Network can

(06:08):
continue to be a home for diverse voices because there's.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Different people who you know.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Somebody said to me the other day, Oh, you know,
you know Charlemagne, like, how how you're going to work
with him? When he said this, and he said that,
I'm like, First of all, me and Charlamage don't always
agree on everything, but one thing I know for sure
is that an investment in him is an investment in

(06:35):
allowing us to.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Be who we are. I've never received a.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
Call from the Black Effect Podcast Network to say Hey, guys,
we need you to tone it down. Don't talk about this,
don't don't talk about this issue. And I know for
a fact that he's received those calls. Why do you
have you know, my son saying this or Tamika's saying
that or whatever.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
All the people who.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
Are part of the network, and never has that energy
been transferred onto us. Instead, what we hear as positive
affirmations to keep going, keep building, and that's a good thing.
Then our team at Until Freedom, we have so many
people who are invested in helping us to build an organization.
You got funders who this year when people should have

(07:22):
had nothing, when we could have been closed, we literally
could have had to close our doors this year. And
instead of having to close our doors, we had people
poor resources in to help us maintain and to continue
to do our work. And then of course all the
personal people who work with us and support us.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
I mean, it's a big deal to have a community
to your point.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
That holds up all the stuff that we have going on,
and to every single person who subscribes to our channel
or the downloads a podcast episode, it means so much
because you could get your information from anybody else, But
I see people all the time. It's like, girl, I
was listening to y'all and they know exactly what happened.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Who said what? All the things?

Speaker 5 (08:13):
You know.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
I've even had somebody say, hey, you got to listen
to my song more, you know, And that's all right,
that's all right, that's all right.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Somebody said that you can listen to me.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Woman said that.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
To me on a plane, got to listen to my
song more because you cut him off, and I was
and his point, he had a good point, you know.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
And she wasn't trying to be rules. She was like,
I'm invested.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
She was telling you the truth. Listen to my song.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
I respect that.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
No, listen to my more.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
You heard that?

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Anyway.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
As we move on into this episode, we have a
rundown of ten things that we decided that we want
to leave in twenty twenty five that we're not taking
into twenty twenty six. We not having New Year's resolutions,
because everybody has resolutions. It's just certain things that we
believe need to stay inside of twenty side inside, stay

(09:08):
inside of twenty twenty four, not outside inside, stay in, No,
stay inside, like inside, you need to put you inside.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Stay back in twenty twenty five. So to me, what
do you say, This one's a fun experiment.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yes, give me, give me, give me, yeah, let's see.

Speaker 4 (09:24):
One for me is performative activism with no follow through.
So that is a march that has no movement after all, right,
that would be a post, right, and then not being
engaged further than a post, which means donating or showing

(09:47):
up somewhere to be a part of something that's bigger
than just putting information out on social media. We are
leaving behind the era of looking woke but not always
doing the work.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Because a lot of people that do that, especially in
this Internet era that you know, people realize that if
it's a trend, but right now it's not really. It's
not that, it's not really that trending.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
We're down to.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
The people we actually are.

Speaker 4 (10:19):
People are afraid to even speak because they don't know
what might happen.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
You're taking a real risk.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
You can't be woke, you can't be black, you can't
be anti fascist, you can't be none of these.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Things, anti fascists. That's so funny.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, you can't be none of that. You have to
you have to use the words that they want to
you to use. They don't put you in the algorithm.
So it's really, of course, we really like some of
the soul survivors of the woke movement. So for minds,
I'm gonna say, let's leave trauma as entertainment, right.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
Let's see that behind.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yes, we're gonna We're gonna leave behind trauma as entertainment.
A lot of people are entertained by other people's trauma.
They watch people being beefs, right, they watch people get
slaughtered like people are entertained by it.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
There's nothing wrong with.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Being informed, because we need to be informed about what's
going on in society. But the fact that people utilize
it as entertainment, it's crazy to me. Stop packaging black
pain for clicks, viral moments, and profit, especially when there's
no healing, context or accountability attached to it.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
I like that. I like that.

Speaker 4 (11:35):
That makes me puts me in the mind of One
of my thought of the days was that I wanted
Clarissa Shields and Laila Ali to don't argue.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
No mieriod.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
We don't want to hear it. It's not good, it
ain't working. I don't care boxing. We don't want it.
We don't want this icon and this young icon and
the makeing to be arguing we don't want to do
it as trauma as entertainment. We leave in it in
the past. Let's see, I'm leaving in twenty twenty five

(12:05):
blind loyalty to politicians who don't deliver right. And that's
a tough one because that doesn't mean that they do
everything I want them to do. They say all the
right things, that's not what I'm talking about. It takes
us even deeper than that, because it's one thing to
be like, well, I don't like such and such politician

(12:27):
because they aren't on this issue that I care about.
We're gonna talk about that in the weeks, the upcoming weeks.
But it's something else to say, maybe you and I
do not agree on this, we don't align on this,
and that's a problem for me. But I can look
at your record and see where you have secured housing

(12:50):
for your local community, and you have, you know, been
a part of the fight to make sure healthcare costs
are maintained and or lowered. You know, you your office,
your constituent services division of your office, actually gets things done,
stops evictions or at least helps to keep people from

(13:12):
getting evicted. Make sure that the schools are cleaned and
that the schools have resources in the senior sentens, like
you gotta look at people's records to make sure that
they're delivering to their their constituents, and of course if
they are playing on a national level, we need to
make sure that they deliver for us there too.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
I think that makes one hundred percent of sense. I
really have never supported any politician that I don't believe
is trying to deliver anything for me, Like I don't
have any allegiance to a party or politician. Like I've
voted for people that I didn't like, you know, but
I felt like they were going to do things.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Right it would be better then.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah, Like I felt like, Okay, I don't like this person,
but this person is going to do this right here
and this is what I need them for Mickey, Right.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
So I've done that.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
But I've never voted for somebody just because there was
a politician I thought they was cool, Like, I ain't
never did that, so but I think there are a
lot of people who do that, you know, So when
we talk about it, it makes sense. So the next
one for me is hustle culture without ownership. I think
a lot of us are working hard, exhausted, body breaking down,

(14:24):
mind breaking down, and we're not even working towards owning
the things that we're working hard, Like, I don't want
to work hard for somebody else's dream, right If I'm
not building with you, if we're not building towards something
that we're growing together, like, I don't.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Want to do that. I think we need to leave
that in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Anybody who's doing that, I think I gave that up
a long time ago. I used to always say I'm
gonna work hard, I'm gonna be a hard worker, and
then you start thinking that you partnering with people, but
they not your partners. They got their own agendas, they
didn't figure out how they got getting ninety percent of
the deal, and they cutting you out, and it's like, nah,
I don't think. I think no one should be okay

(15:02):
with that, right, especially when you're put in your blood,
sweat and tears into something. I think, especially as black
people right now, we should be definitely working towards ownership.
Stop hustling and nickeling, dom in yourself, build foundation, build generation, wealth.

Speaker 4 (15:18):
Hustle culture with no ownership is being left in twenty
twenty five.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (15:23):
I think something I'm leaving in twenty twenty five is
people who know that something is misinformation, but because it
fits their agenda or their way of thinking, they.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Spread it anyway. That's to me is bugger.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, we cannot support those. Yeah, you just can't even
support those heal. I was gonna say that too, is like,
and now I can say the Internet, right, because we
have an Internet where there's so many people just intentionally
spread misinformation life.

Speaker 4 (15:54):
Now people say it out their mouths too. That's what
I'm saying. It's not just the Internet, but.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
You have more. But you see it on the internet, though,
but you see it more, and they get it from
the internet. They don't like most of the people that
are saying the crazy stuff. I see it on the
line and they said this. I heard people come to
me and said I heard that you stole the money.
It was online. So it's right, And I'm like, what
you don't know me forty years? Like how you online

(16:19):
told you something about me when you already see me.
So That's what I'm trying to say, Like, is misinformation
the algorithm is intentionally misinforming our people, and a lot
of those of us who have platforms and voices, we
have to dispel those mess I know people like you can't.
I'm like, if I don't do it, if it's not
one place that some people can come to to get

(16:40):
accurate information that's been fact checks, that can shoot down
the bullshit that.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
They putting out there, then we're gonna lose, you know.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
So the one I want to leave behind is a
big one, and it's gender wars. But I'm really tired
of black men and black women going to war over
gender politics online.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Lie. I'm soal and just in.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
The world period, Like we we're not in a space,
especially as black people, to be at war with each other,
like we need each other so much. Like I don't
want to hear no black women say I don't need
a black man. I don't want to hear black women
say he ain't beating no black woman. I don't want
to hear none of that. It's just I don't want
to hear that. That is blasphemy. It's always been blastphem me.

(17:25):
It's never worked for us. It's only divided us. If
we are not building with each other, trying to grow
learn each other. Then we are doing our people and
our children to deserve it. So I am leaving it.
I'm not getting into no back and forth over no gender.
I'm not doing it no no, no, and I'm not
supporting nobody that's doing it either.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
One that I want to leave behind in twenty twenty
five is treating mental health like a trend instead of
a responsibility, because a lot of people people are like
all about mental health now, but some of them are
folks who are like getting paid to talk about mental

(18:08):
health because that was the shift. It's like, you know,
let's go to the mental health feel and I don't
think that they're qualified, nor do they even really believe
what it is that they're talking about, you know what
I'm saying. It would be kind of like me, I'm
in the space of addiction prevention. It's something that I'm

(18:30):
working hard, working hard to like learn other things aside
from the lived experience, and I want to present myself
as authentic in that space. So I'm not gonna like
try a different pill, you know what I mean, Like
I'm gonna be taking some other thing that I know

(18:52):
I'm not supposed to be popping like adderalls when I
go hang out, like, you can't do it. It doesn't work,
you know what I'm saying. And I see a lot
of people who are supposed to be in the mental
health space that are that be arguing on the internet
and you know, and I'm like, I saw somebody who's
supposed to be in mental health awareness.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Share the most demeaning posts, and I.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
Was like, I know we're not going to be perfect
because sometimes I say things that people are like, well,
that's not community and that's not whatever.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
But you're supposed to be a professional.

Speaker 4 (19:31):
And I don't believe that everybody that is in the
mental health space is there for the right reasons. I
think it's trendy, so that I'm going to leave that
in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
So the next thing I want to leave is respectability politics.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Help please my son?

Speaker 2 (19:48):
No, really, I just believe that we are holding black
people to standards that nobody else is being held to.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Right. We're talking about all.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
They're too loud, that ghetto and we live in America.
Now that's changed, there's no more respectability. JD. Evince was
at the Turning Point Space talking about Jasmine Crockett like
he was in the street, like like he was snapping
in the street, and we keep saying that she can't
talk this way and she needs to be professional in

(20:17):
its ghetto and we're dealing with the most ghetto administration,
were dealing with people who don't have any type of
decorum and were holding our people to these standards, and
I'm I'm done with that. I'm not gonna allow you
to disrespect me and man, and I'm supposed to sound,
you know, like this respectable individual, and I'm you're gonna

(20:38):
hold me to a highest because it ain't win, you know,
like the the Michelle Obama they go low and we
go high, as oh were going to have.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
I don't even think Obama's I would like to ask,
but he's still going high because you know, I speech
at the DNC and some of the things I've heard
her saying she been low, Well, you know, I don't
know if it's low.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
I think it's real.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
And the only reason why I was like please on
the respectability politics because I feel like it's so much
disrespect out there that I'm almost like, let me be
let me try to get some respect because the respect
is gone.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
So you know, but I agree with you that.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
We can't try to play these people's game using some
you know, rubric if you will, of what it's supposed
to be like when you're dealing with a group of
individuals that we are up against who they want to
they bring in guns. They're bringing guns, and so it's
good you if you know how to fight, but you

(21:39):
should get in the boxing gym and practice those skills
when you come out here with these folks, you got
to be done.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Went to the shooting range.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
It's a different, different vibe. My last thing that I
want to leave in twenty twenty five is being afraid
to move forward, being afraid to move forward, feeling stuck,
feeling like you've invested so much time and a thing,

(22:11):
a business, a relationship, a home, you know, and that
to leave it or to change it or to adjust is.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
It is It's like it's like crippling. I don't want
to live like that anymore.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
I've in the last couple of days, I really have
been in my you know, my intentional thought process about
going into a new year, realizing that sometimes what you
have to separate yourself from or your next phase, your evolution, it.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Hurts, but you want to hurt now or later.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
You have to make a decision about are you ready
to go through the process, because on the other side
of it, we all know, I know, you know, everybody
knows that it doesn't last forever. The pain does not
last forever. I'm going into twenty twenty six where it
finally clicked for me when watching I think Charlomagne was

(23:16):
talking about a couple of people was talking about this
is the year of shedding.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
The snake is shedding, or it's the year of the
snake or something.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
Anybody's talking about shedding and new life, new energy, and
I was like, wow, it finally occurred to me just
now that life is changing. Like people, we're growing, we're
becoming different than we were in or at least I
know I am forty forty one forty two, that forty

(23:45):
five is a big age. It's a big age. And
my expectations of myself, my expectations of everybody around me,
and where it is that I want to go is
something fresh, you know, something new. I think that's where
I'm going to thrive the most is in an environment

(24:06):
that's fresh. And so I don't want to be afraid,
and I think we have to lead the fear of
the unknown behind in order for us to get to
the sweetness that's prepared for us on the other side
of that fear.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
So that's what I'm leaving in twenty five.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Sounds like a great thing to leave in twenty twenty five.
Well last, but definitely not least. I want to leave
the term hynds in twenty twenty five. I just think
that our young kings, as I would rather refer to
them as, need to be treated as such and spoke
energy into And I think when we use this term

(24:47):
yns is it diminishes them, it makes them, it doesn't
hold them to a high regard, It doesn't hold them
to a higher standard. It doesn't make them believe that
they have to be better, you know. And it's like
we accept negativity from them, you know. And I want
I don't want to do that as someone who's evolving
as a man, as I reflect on my own past

(25:10):
as a young man and just understand how words really
have consequences.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
And they have meaning and they mean things, you know.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
So I just I'm really moving forward in this mentorship
because that's what I really want to do. In the
next phase of my life is deal with mentorship and
deal with helping these young kings that I know from
these inner cities grow to their full potential, you know.
And I think in order to do that, then we
have to be intentional about treating them like kings, speaking

(25:40):
to them like kings, and referring to them as kings.

Speaker 4 (25:45):
Well, there it is the ten things that we are
leaving behind in twenty twenty five twenty So now we
have a great interview coming up with a young man
who has been able to build a successful business that
is rooted in community support. And you know that's not

(26:08):
always the case. The storyline is usually there's not enough support.
But in his situation, he's actually had some strong support
that has helped him to build a brand that will
probably outlast all of us. So let's bring our guests
on the last episode of twenty twenty five for the
TMI show. All right, so we are in our last

(26:31):
the final episode of it ain't what it's supposed to be. Now,
throughout this series that we've been in, we learned a
lot about entrepreneurs. We learned a lot about building businesses,
but what we learned the most is about people's reality,
like their business is building while their lives are in motion.

(26:54):
And when life and business collide, sometimes things were well.
Other times things can be a struggle. But what you
see on social media, the thing that we're all attracted to.
We always have to remember the middle.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
I mean, our.

Speaker 4 (27:11):
Sister said that last week, Khalila Wright, Kalila Wright for
messing a bottle when she talked about that book about
the mess in the middle. And I was watching our
next guest, who I love and he's the homie, complete
brother and family and so proud of him. I was
watching a live that he does because, like me, every

(27:35):
now and then he gets frustrated with the f shit
that goes on in the world and he just pops
up like I'm sick of his shit. Let me tell
y'all you know is I do the same thing. And
he was talking about having to reacquire his company and
you know other things that black businesses go through, struggles
that black businesses face, And I said, he has to

(27:58):
be our final guess of it what it supposed to be.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
If you look at the events.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
That happen in his space, it looks like their business
has been popping and every black person supports it and
everybody's there, when in fact, the truth is that there's
ebbs and flows like everything else. And so I'm excited
to have our brother Ryan Wilson with us today. And
Ryan is the visionary and the owner of the Gathering Spot.

(28:26):
So if you don't know what the gathering Spot is, y'all,
y'all know how we like to go to Soho House
and Zero Bond and all of these private clubs. That
has become a really big thing where now more black
people are becoming members of these clubs. Because it was
a time when I used to go to meetings at
the Soho House in the very beginning and to these

(28:48):
other clubs, there were no like maybe five black people
in a space full of white folks. But now more
of us are becoming members and there is a place
in It's in let me make sure I'm right in Atlanta,
in Washington, d C. And in LA where black folks

(29:09):
own and operate a private club with investors and it
is professional and it's beautiful, and it's community oriented. It
is about our empowerment. And so Ryan Wilson is the
visionary behind that, and he is the owner of the
Gathering Spot. And I'm so excited that you came to

(29:29):
join us today ran on TMI.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
Thank you so much for being with us.

Speaker 5 (29:35):
No, I appreciate you. Thank you that that was very kind.
And I'm the last guest too, that's like, wow, thank.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
You, thanks for having me of this series.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
You topping off the series man so as She just
gave this beautiful bio.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
For you, you know, and it was amazing.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
I just want to know what made you think at
twenty four that you could just build a whole community
before you even built the space.

Speaker 5 (29:59):
Look, it's hard to become something that you haven't seen before.
And I'm fortunate that my parents are entrepreneurs, right, So
I always it's important for me to acknowledge that because
I was able to witness they're not in they didn't
do anything similar to what I'm doing. But I saw
them start with a couple of people in our basement
and then grow a company to pretty significant scale. My journey.

(30:22):
I went to law school really to be a civil
rights attorney. And it was the same summer between my
one OO and two L that George Zimmerman was on
trial for Traylor Martin's murder, and so I was watching
that case like everybody else all day long. To make
a long story short, when he got acquitted of Trayvon
Martin's murder, I got an email from some friends. It
simply said, what are we going to do? And I

(30:44):
responded back saying, look, we need a physical place, we
need a community to have this conversation. I couldn't shake
the idea from that moment. That was the summer again
at twenty thirteen, and I made the call to my
parents and told him, look, I was going to graduate
from law school, but I really wanted to pursue building
this place that I had in my head that now
is called the Gatherings.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
But wow, so you you were like, so you know,
it's funny because the guests that we had on before
you last week, Kalila Wright, who has a company called
Messing a Bottle, she said that her idea she was
in school for architecture and had actually not even was
she in school. She graduated with her masters in architecture

(31:27):
and she was working on that track, but then Freddie
Gray was killed in her community in Baltimore, and she
talked about that CVS that everybody you know watch burned
down that was actually in that's her local CBS, and
that's what made her decide to start this business. It's

(31:47):
interesting that over the last ten years, especially during the
Obama years, when you had you know, Mike Brown and
other you know people who we lost soldiers, that we
lost businesses grew out of that because there is this
misconception that we're just sitting around waiting on white folks

(32:09):
to give us and we just want to beg the
white men, and they not gonna respect us because we don't.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
No. No, people built businesses.

Speaker 4 (32:16):
People looked at what the conditions in front of them
and said we need to build our own and you
are a part of that. Could you speak to what
it was like once you said okay, let's meet, let's
have a gathering spot, Like, what was it like getting
people to own that with you and help make it happen.

Speaker 5 (32:37):
Look, I mean it was ugly early on. We started
to talk to folks about it and a lot of
people told us no. Right. I started having to raise
money at the same time, and we counted the number
of people that said no before we got the first yes.
It was ninety seven straight nos before we got the
first person from a fundraising perspective to invest in the company.
But I learned a lot in that journey through no.

(33:02):
And I will encourage anyone that is listening to this
conversation two things. First, build through no. Right, just because
someone said no to you, that does not mean that
that is not the thing that you're supposed to be doing.
I believe that this is my assignment, Like, this is
the thing that I'm supposed to be doing. So I
would take those no's and respectfully tell those folks, Look,

(33:23):
I spend a lot of time thinking about this. You
just spent the last ten minutes, so respectfully, like, I'm
gonna go with my gut on this one, right, And
I hear you, right, But this also is something that
I'm deeply passionate about and I've got to go see
if this thing is a real opportunity. But the inspiration

(33:46):
to start a business, I think the mistake we make
a lot of times is thinking that that's random. It's not.
It is not random, right, Like the reason why we
are doing this stuff it comes from somewhere, It's animated
by something. And again, it is your job really to
just be a good steward of what is your assignment,
rather than treating it and allowing people to talk about

(34:06):
it like it's some random thing. So I no, I mean,
I've heard it all right, and I've read I've had
horrible meetings where people told me that I was flat
out going to fail. If you think about any disruptive idea,
any disruptive company, all of them when we first hear
about them really don't make sense. Like I remember, I
went to law school Georgetown. I remember being in DC

(34:30):
and they started talking about Uber come into town and
I was like, so, you're trying to tell me that
somebody's going to come pick me up in their car
and take me somewhere else. I was like, I don't
really understand that, Like what is where? Wore that? What
is that? And then a couple years later they were like, hey,
not only can you go get in somebody's random car,

(34:50):
you can go get in like you can go stay
in somebody's house, like some random person's house. Our first
reaction right to anything that is that becomes category defining
a lot of times it's going to be hesitation. So
if you're in that season where people are hesitating and
don't get the vision, know that, like you're in good company,
because that is what any good idea should have to

(35:11):
go through to a certain extent. Now people are like, oh,
of course, but they always do no, come on, no,
I remember I was there. I remember that it wasn't
oh of course. I remember when you told me straight
to my face that you didn't see it happening. And
that's okay. I'm not mad at you for it. Right,
it wasn't your vision right by definition, it wasn't your vision.
It's my vision. So I can't sit around and be

(35:36):
worried about how you feel about what the thing is
that I'm spending my time doing. I knew why I
was spending my time building the business, and ten years later,
I'm still at it, Thank god.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
Amen.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
So what is the core of your civil rights through it?
Like the energy that you put into civil rights. You
wanted to be a civil rights lawyer. You created to
gathering spot because you wanted to have a place to
gather in situations such as what happened was an What
do you think that comes from?

Speaker 5 (36:04):
I mean, I come out of the Ami Church. My
grandfather was. There are photos that I have of him
standing with Doctor King and other movement leaders. You see
Doctor King's march on Washington. My grandfather. You can't really
see that a picture of doctor King giving that speech
without my grandfather being in frame. Right. So I knew

(36:25):
from a really early age that I was a part
of a tradition, a part of a continuum, and it
was going to be up to me to try to
be again a good steward of that responsibility. And no,
I mean I'm lifelong Ami though I come out of
Turner Chapel.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Do you lead with when you're in?

Speaker 4 (36:45):
And I know every meeting is different, but when you
tell me that people didn't believe in it, I'm trying
to understand what was it that?

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Because I got it immediately, as soon.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
As someone said the gathering spot with it, I got it.
Is it that they felt concerned that she was so
deeply rooted in community and social justice and all of that.
Is that what was the problem?

Speaker 5 (37:07):
I mean, it depends on who we were talking about, right,
Some people, I'm a first time founder. They didn't believe
in that. Some people thought I was too young. Other
people thought that you couldn't possibly put so every gathering
spot has events space, restaurant and bar and workspace in
the same under the same roof. So some people were
like I don't understand how you you believe you're gonna
have people dining and working and attending experiences all the

(37:31):
under the same roof other people. Just look, look, we
have to call it what it is. Other people were
more comfortable believing that. Frankly, it was just anybody else
that didn't have my background that would be more successful
at doing this. I don't know, though, past the analysis
that I just gave you, that it's worth spending that
much time if you're an entrepreneur trying to figure out

(37:53):
all the reasons why people tell you no. They come
from a lot of different directions. I mean I had
people past y'all saying and stuff that in hindsight, I
really and when they said it made absolutely no sense.
I mean I had a guy I remember telling me
he passed on investing in the business because he was like,
I did events while I was in college, and so

(38:16):
I'm out, and I'm like, what does that have to do?
What do I have to do with what I just
pitched you on at all?

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Might have been a hater, he might have just been a.

Speaker 5 (38:28):
That's the nature of the game, though, right. I Mean,
like there are a lot of people I try to
especially during this time of the year. There are a
lot of businesses that have had a really, really, really
tough year and are looking at next year, and next
year doesn't feel at the moment like it's going to
be much better, right, right, right, right. This stuff is

(38:49):
not random, Like you cannot do your work as there's
a lot of ways to make a dollar. Being an
entrepreneur doesn't always make sense. And let you are deeply
convicted about making sure that this business happens every single day.
So I don't know why all the folks said that
we were wrong, but I could tell you then and

(39:12):
now that like that wasn't that wasn't their work. It's
my work, and I take that seriously. Like I take
my work seriously. I don't if you disagree with with
what I'm I'm spending my time doing. Well, like that
that's that's that has nothing to do with you, Like
like it's I mean, it's similar to like the work

(39:34):
that y'all do, which I I didn't have the time
at the top of this to say, I have tremendous
respect for, right, but like that's y'all's work, that's your assignment.
Like the way that you engage in community, the way
that you uplift and show up for us across all
the different things that you do. Right, that's not random,
But you don't just get up in the work in
the morning just happen to be be doing this Like

(39:56):
this comes from somewhere, and I think the faster you
can get in tune with that better, right, because the
game is designed to have all different types of people
come at you, talking all different types of ways, and
a lot of times it's the people that are closest
to us. You don't even have to wait for a stranger,
your best friend and your mama and your cousin to

(40:18):
every reason. First people saying that you're wrong.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah, So what was the process like expanding Because you know,
I've been to Atlanta and it's an amazing spot, Like
I always love to go there. So what was the
and I know you you just spoke about how a
lot of people didn't believe. So the process of expanding
to two different spaces after that, what was that?

Speaker 5 (40:40):
Like? Yeah, I mean I knew when we started when
I looked at businesses that were investables. So this is
another tough conversation, but it's one that we have to
have more more often businesses that are and I got
this advice from my dad. I came to him. At
one point we a guy in a quote that said

(41:00):
that we needed to raise like a million dollars. So
our first fund raise ended up being on a little
north of three million, but we got a number back
at first that said a million, and I went to
him and I was like that, I don't know, like
you know, this was all fun and games, but like
you know, these numbers are coming out. This is about
to be a significant thing. He said something that that
I never forgotten and I try to tell everybody. He

(41:21):
was like, look, son, small ideas will keep you small.
You have to fight for the best possible version of
this idea. And I'm like, okay, well, the vision that
I have in my head is that there can be
gathering spots and multiple communities across the country, and so
if I'm going to fight for the best possible version
of this, I need to start articulating that now, not later.

(41:47):
That is, we knew from the beginning that we were
going to try to explore other other cities. So now
we have two locations in Atlanta, one location in Washington,
d C. One location in Los Angeles. But the plan is,
the plan is to keep going right, and I have
never abandoned ten years later, the very simple advice that like,

(42:09):
if you have a small idea, that idea will likely
stay exactly where it is now. Small. And really this
season for us as a community is not about starting businesses.
To me, it's about scaling businesses. And I think that
again you you're able to pursue scale a lot easier
when you start with the end in mind.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
Well, why take the risk of going to the biggest
cities you know where it's i mean the cost of
DC rent and La rent. And I'm getting ready to
talk you into a tri state area maybe like a Newark,
New Jersey thing, you know what I mean, Like, why
go there instead of trying something in you know, Augusta

(42:53):
or somewhere else that or maybe not Augusta, maybe Savannah.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
A place where.

Speaker 4 (42:58):
People they have they have means, they have means, but
it's not going to cost you as much to build.

Speaker 5 (43:07):
Small ideas will keep you small, right, they don't, they
don't go to just what what is possible to do? Right?
Like I'm I'm all for if it's part of a
strategy starting where you can, right, So, like, don't hear
me saying that if you feel like there's a great
opportunity in Savannah, shout out to Savannah. But if the
thing that is in your heart and in your mind

(43:27):
is to build something in major cities, look, I don't
believe that all of the expansion and the big brands
and the opportunity to exist in big markets, that those
opportunities are reserved for some other group of people. They're
reserved for me too. No, I want to be in DC,
I want to be in LA. I want to be
in major metros. And again, I like when you get

(43:48):
up and close and personal with the folks that are
in all of the big markets, right that have the
New York London you know the you know the shirts
that used to have all that. Yeah, all right, bet
when you go talk to them, what you'll find is
that those folks are any more special, more experienced, a
little bit more know how on this, that and the other. Right,

(44:09):
But if your vision is to exist in a in
a large setting, then go build that thing in a
large setting. We don't win anything by playing small ball, right, Like, like,
we we should not be comfortable talking to one another
with the expectation, because I think that's a big part
of life. If I expect for you to be great,

(44:30):
there is a higher chance that that is going to exist.
Then if I say, hey, you know, go to the
smallest town possible and go try this MM if that's
a part of a strategy again here, then go do that.
But if that is not the vision that has been
planted with you, then I don't see the reason to
go and try to just do the small version. Let

(44:53):
me play a game that way. That's just not my Like,
I I want to go be b where everybody yoss. Again,
I don't think that my logo has to be small
right the cities and it's like, well, you know, these
brands have been or been around for forever. They didn't
They weren't always around for forever, and they didn't get
to the place that we experience them now by saying hey,

(45:16):
let's go, let's go be in the in the smallest
footprint possible.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
You know, I totally respect what you're saying.

Speaker 4 (45:23):
Just thinking about my pastor has been the chairman of
Virginia Union College now for I don't know, Maybe I'm
just going to say five years may have been longer
maybe a year shorter. And in the past, when you
would arrive at the Richmond, Virginia Airport and you look
up at the top, because you know so many colleges there,

(45:45):
there would be all these flags from the different colleges,
you know whatever, all the different colleges. And one day
I went down to speak. In fact, they gave me
an honorary degree and I was the commencement speaker a
few years ago. And when I got in the airport,

(46:05):
I looked up. Now, I want to make sure to say,
my family lives in a place in North Carolina that
you can arrive in Richmond and it's an hour and
a half drive. So I've been to this airport for
years and years and years and years. I know what's
around the esthetics. But I was walking through the airport
one day and I looked up and with all the flags,

(46:27):
I saw the added Virginia Union University.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
Because that was his mindset.

Speaker 4 (46:33):
He wasn't going to just be the chairman and say, oh,
you know, we graduated this. No, he wants the branding
to be at the same level with all the major
universities and the other colleges, and the pwis why can't
HBCU have that same standing in the airport, and it

(46:53):
means something. It does change even the way that the
students and the families show up, you know, to the institution.

Speaker 5 (47:01):
Look, we have to never allow anyone to convince any
of us that again, everything that is the most that
you can receive out of life is reserved for everyone
else except for us. I don't believe that, as far

(47:22):
as I understand it. I get a chance to do
life one time, and you should just sit here and
be just happy to be here, and everyone else get
to go achieve everything else that's around, and my job
is just to be happy, to struggle, to struggle and
be happy that I'm here. I don't feel that way

(47:42):
about it. I've had the benefit of being in very
close proximity to many of the people that are accumulating
all of these things, and there is no way that
I am not going to do everything possible to at
least show up myself a shot, to have a.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Shot and perhaps succeed.

Speaker 5 (48:04):
What I have seen. Actually, so I mentioned law school.
I went to Georgetown for undergrad and I remember the
first day they had this big event and they asked
everybody to stand up if you were a valedatorian or
salutatory any of your class. It felt like the whole
room stood up.

Speaker 3 (48:21):
It was like.

Speaker 5 (48:24):
What am I doing in here? So I carried that
energy with me in class the classes and would be like,
I don't know, I don't know why I'm I don't
know what, Like why am I here? I Somewhere mid
through the first semester, I started to really study the
folks that I was in class with. I'm like, wait,

(48:45):
hold on one. My mom would sent me up here
with a very specific responsibility, but just to get this degree.
That I'm not coming back to Atlanta without the degree,
Like the degree is coming back home with me that
like one way or another, Like I'm bringing a back
number two. As I spend more time really studying who

(49:05):
I'm competing with, these folks don't really want it with me,
Like I just told you why, Like I'm up here
with a very specific set of instructions. I don't think
these people are about to go where I'm willing to
go to be successful. And so sure they may have
a little bit of this or a little bit of that, right,
but like if I apply myself to this process, ooh,

(49:30):
this is gonna get this is gonna get really interesting,
is my bet. Or at least I'm gonna be able
to look up at the end of the game and
be like I lost, Like I just like I played
as hard as I could and like it didn't work out.
But I'm gonna have to go experience that moment, like
I'm gonna have to actually go and lose and sit
here losing before I ever played. Once I started to

(49:50):
apply myself my the gut that I had when I
had this epiphany was right, those folks don't and I
have the same energy about business. You don't want to
compete with me and that so everybody can win and
all that, and like you know, the ocean is big
enough for all of us. Yes, but do not go

(50:13):
heads up with me because I'm here with very specific instructions.
I don't think that you're willing to go to the
places that I'm willing to go to to make sure
that this works. And real people that I care about
on payrolls, like like I don't you you raise money
from people that you don't know that if they you know,
you lose it it. I raised money from people who

(50:34):
can call me so that this isn't that.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
We're not, we're not on the same in the reality
of the situation.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
I heard Obama say the same thing.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
He said, when you get in the room with a
lot of these guys, they're supposed to be this and that,
and you realize they're not all that. They like you,
they're not what you think. And I've and I've experienced that,
you know, being in the music industry, just being around
certain spaces, just even in this this activism space, and
just being in certain rooms and you just think these
people you see them and you think, well, they they.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
Smarter than me and this and that, and they really
are not.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
You know, they just have had opportunities and been in
spaces that you haven't and they had, you know, different
upbringings and been around. But now that you when you
get those opportunities and then you maximize on, you realize
that they really can't compete with you at that level.
So I want to ask you this question. You know,
now that the Greenwood has acquired you know, the Gatherings Spot,

(51:29):
what does that mean for you personally and what does
it mean for the business in general.

Speaker 5 (51:35):
So I appreciate you're asking me this because the update
to that update was that I bought the business back.
So yeah, we required in twenty twenty two.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
And Greenwork is the bank that Killer Mike is also
a part of.

Speaker 5 (51:49):
Right, Yes, okay, yeah, he was one of the original factors.
But we bought the business back at the basically walking
into the top of twenty four. So it's been two
years back with us. There's a lot that we could
talk about in that. I mean, the short version was
that it wasn't a good fit right for the two companies.
And when we saw that it wasn't a good fit,

(52:11):
going back to what I've been saying this whole time, right,
this is not random work for me. Right, I'm gonna
do everything that I possibly can to make the gathering
spot successful. So we made the decision to reacquire the company,
and I'm as excited, I mean, we open another location
this year. I'm as excited about the work that we're
doing and the way that we're doing it as I've

(52:32):
ever been. But I mean, for anybody who is thinking
about scaling their business to the point where it's interesting
for someone to acquire it, look, I'm always going to
be the person in the conversation that will say, if
that makes sense, for you. I'm all for let's have

(52:52):
legacy businesses and keep them in the family and keep
it in the community. That's the first place that people go, well,
we need to keep this stuff do right. But there's
also a problem that exists that we don't talk about enough.
There has to be a wealth transfer in this country, right.
I heard a long time ago there's only two ways
to make money in America. You either have to invest
in something or you have to start something. Okay, for

(53:15):
those of us that start something, the super bowl of
growing a business is some sort of liquidity event, which
a lot of times could look like an acquisition. The
issue though, is that when companies in our community by definition,
become the largest company in a category, where do you
go right? And where a lot of times what didn't

(53:38):
happen with us is that we were acquired by a
black owned business. Is that statistically never happens. And why
bringing this up is that again, to facilitate this wealth
transfer that I'm talking about, there are going to be companies.
We've seen some here over the last couple of years,
and then we will continue to see more that likely

(53:59):
are going to have to be acquired and statistically are
not going to be acquired by other black owned businesses
because they're the largest companies in their category.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
That's organics.

Speaker 5 (54:10):
Where do you go? Yeah, but like there is no
there is no black owned P and G or Unilever
to buy you, right, and so again folks will say, well,
just keep the business right. But what what we need
to again acknowledgement more times than that, is that when
a business announces a fundraising announcement, when they announced that

(54:30):
they they have taken on investors, those folks are trying
to position that business for an acquisition that wasn't charity.
They've already told you what's going to happen if things
go well over the next couple of years. I'm not
saying that it's comfortable, but when you're bt by definition

(54:52):
you're the biggest company in a category, who who can
acquire you? But a viacom right, and we can fight
about like the world as as it should be or
the world as it is? The world as it is
in order to facilitate some money getting into our community,

(55:12):
which we desperately need some more resources is going to
require us to position our businesses for more acquisitions than
what are happening right now, Right now the last majority
of our companies don't employ anybody.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
But let me just say.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
But let me just say, because I think there is
a narrative out there, and to some degree maybe it's
a misunderstanding.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
That we are not old.

Speaker 4 (55:38):
The monies and the investment from these businesses.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
They did not build these businesses on their own.

Speaker 4 (55:46):
P and G and Viacom and all of these companies
that have been named. A huge part of their business
model and their wealth is the one point now they
say one point seven trillion dollars that black folks are
putting in the economy every day. So when we come

(56:08):
up and say, now we want you to take some
of that trillion dollars that you have benefited from on
our community and buy our businesses, businesses, help us scale up,
help us hire more people who look like us.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
We're not asking for a handout.

Speaker 4 (56:24):
We are asking for there to be a recirculation in
our community of what we have put out into the world.

Speaker 5 (56:31):
Absolutely, I think the bigger question that we should be
asking is that once your company is acquired, then what
are you going to go do?

Speaker 1 (56:39):
This is right?

Speaker 5 (56:40):
Are you going to go invest in more black founders?
Are you going to go make sure that whatever way
that you're able to help the next you, that you're
doing that work. But I don't obsess over the acquisition
of the company. I obsess over what happens next. And
I look at examples where if you look at like

(57:00):
a rich dentist right sells say Moisture, goes and buys Essence,
starts the new Voices fund like immediately turns around and
an institution in our community in Essence that we did
not own, and now it's back under black ownership. The
only way that that deal was able to happen is

(57:22):
because he sold the first company. And look, I don't
know what happened to the formula, and I don't I'm
not anything. I don't know. But are we more committed
to the formula or to the idea that we have
the wealth necessary in order to be able to go
and do other things that.

Speaker 4 (57:42):
Are We're committed to both, Ryan, We have to be
committed to both. And I'm going to tell you why,
because when the formula changes, especially for a black women
own or black women brands, especially black women brands, cancer
and you know, all kinds of distressing things happen. So
we have to be concerned about both, but I understand

(58:04):
that your point is we have to find I mean,
we're chartering through a direction.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
Or a path that has to be tweaked and worked out.

Speaker 4 (58:15):
The main thing is can we get the wealth necessary
to transfer into our own communities, to build up, to
hire more, to scale up, to expand, to build another brand.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
That's the main thing I get that.

Speaker 4 (58:29):
However, we can't also allow ourselves to be exploited, and
those are the conversation that's where we have to evolve.

Speaker 5 (58:37):
One hundred percent. I agree with you, right, but my
advice is vote with your feet. If they change the
formula and it is not a product that serves us,
then like any other thing which we don't have a
problem doing, leave we should leave in mass right like
don't use it, and we certainly should not allow anyone

(58:58):
to abuse us in in whatever it is that they're
selling us. So again I'm not saying that it doesn't
matter at all, but part of the game of entrepreneurship, right, wrong, prettier, ugly,
however you want to describe it, is that it takes
a lot of times, a lot of money in order

(59:18):
to get these businesses to scale. And we are already
putting those businesses on a trajectory where if they've become
the biggest in their category, there's nowhere for them to
go in order to facilitate the type of transfer that
I'm talking about, and so acquisition is a hard discussion,
but it's a necessary one. Knowing that, again, the backdrop

(59:40):
of where we actually exist right now is that it's
in the mid nineties in terms of the number of
businesses in our community that don't employ anybody. So we're
talking about three, four, maybe five percent, depending on what
research you're looking at, in terms of the number of
businesses that employ a single person you're black cloned. That

(01:00:02):
number has to change. Do oh no, that number, That
number is out. There are so many, so many numbers
around small business that if folks really understood how bad
it is. I mean, I was talking about one the
other day, and this is outside of the small business context,
but just a number of people should know. Forty five
percent of black folks in Atlanta have delinquent debt, not debt,

(01:00:27):
delinquent debt. So imagine a community, we're forty five percent
of everyone that's there is trying to catch up to
obligations that they have we are in it. We're in
a moment of crisis and small business and investing in
our own businesses and buying from our own business because

(01:00:48):
that's the other that's the other number that we can
work on immediately. Is the way to start to improve
some of these these numbers. I would argue pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
What is the best remedy that we have for scaling
and still staying culturally relevant to our people. It's like,
because you know, I got a friend. We have a
friend who's scaling, has different businesses, and if you go
to his business in New York, it doesn't look like
the business in Miami, right because he wants it to
be relevant to the you know, the culture did too.

(01:01:21):
So how do we we keep our own culture as
we scale in different cities that have different demographics.

Speaker 5 (01:01:29):
The thing that's interesting about the way that we show
up as consumers is that look, any business, at least
a good one knows who's buying from them, right, Like
they even even inside of larger umbrellas. Right Like if
I asked you, for example, do black folks drink more
Coca Cola or sprite? We all know the answer to

(01:01:50):
that question, right, And some of that is preference, right,
But a lot of it is is us telling the company,
through our through the dollars, that we been what we
prefer I'd say that to you, to say that the
best thing that we can do to make sure that
we show up is to do what we already do,

(01:02:10):
which is to participate in the process.

Speaker 4 (01:02:13):
Is that That's a good question, though. So I've been
to the DC or the LA location. I'm like married
to Atlanta that that's you know, that's my spot. Do
they all look the same or have you created energy
that is d C friendly? You know, obviously DC is
a different type of place, and so same thing with LA.

(01:02:37):
And I think it's okay to say that. The friend
that we're talking about is Don Pool, who owns Brooklyn Chophouse. So,
you know, downtown Brooklyn Chophouse looks like a place where
the city officials can go, like it's a it's a
fancy restaurant that is near City Hall, and it looks
like the place that politicians and other business people from

(01:03:01):
the financial district and all of them would go. Then
you go into Times Square and it's much more. You know,
it's different, it's different. It's Times Squares you know, the
financial district. I haven't been to Dubai, but I'm sure
that has a vibe. But then when going into the
Miami location, it took on sort of like like if

(01:03:22):
I was looking at a Greek restaurant, you know, so
every one of them has different energy.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
So is it like that for you?

Speaker 5 (01:03:30):
Yeah? So Look, my philosophy is that you don't come
to any community. You join. The community should be the effort, right,
I think that's what you just described. If you're joining
a community, even if it's a sub community of a
larger community, right, you've got to make sure that what
you're building feels like where you're going. So No, DC

(01:03:51):
doesn't feel like Atlanta, and LA doesn't feel like the
other ones either, like those clubs, and what we work
on is joining like not even just La. Our club
is on West Adams in La. Right, it needs to
feel like a business that's on atoms. Hey, that's from

(01:04:12):
how you design it. That's in who's there, that's in
the music that's playing, that's the food, that's that. Like,
you've got to be committed. Again, this isn't Walmart, right,
We're not just plopping down a logo and a floor
plan and saying you know here it is to do
small business and community business. Well, you got to take
a step back and say, hey, how do I join

(01:04:33):
this community? What gaps exist here? How do I engage
what already is special about wherever this is and then
contribute to it rather than bringing something or coming to
you know, someplace. I don't look at it that way.
That expansion for me is about relationship more than it
is about anything else.

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
Wow, I have one last question about your business model.
It requires memberships, right, and would you say that's the
easiest part the hardest part.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Have you been disappointed.

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
Or surprised by the way that our community has shown
up to support And I know the answer because I've
seen you've talked about this a few times, but I
want to hear from you your perspective on like we
say we want things built in our communities, are we
showing up the.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
Way that we should be?

Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
And and you know, like I had an event there,
and you know this is more than one event that
I've been involved in or have have told the people it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
Needs to be at the gathering spot.

Speaker 4 (01:05:37):
I'm all anytime somebody says to me, where do we
go gatherings? By gatherings, by gathering spot, I've sent business
there and I'm not looking for you to cut me
in or the person to pay me like I find
that a lot of that happens in our community when
it comes to well not just our community, but in
communities when it comes to making business connections.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
You want to meddle in it into the.

Speaker 4 (01:06:00):
Last minute to see what you can also get out
of it, instead of understanding that it's a mission. It
should be a mission for all of us to build
what we have and make it the best that it
can be. And so I just want to hear what
your experience has been with this membership model, with the
events and people looking at the gathering spot as the

(01:06:20):
place for black meta.

Speaker 5 (01:06:24):
We've been extremely blessed. Thank you. I appreciate you like
you and a lot of folks right didn't have to,
but have gone out of their way to refer other
people to be a part of TGS. And so our
membership exists as one of the largest in the country.
This is the thing, though we are in a moment
in time where unfortunately this is this family business. It's

(01:06:46):
hard to talk about, right, but there aren't as many
black owned organizations who are funded by their community, right,
and so part of the reason why I can talk
about POLO and who I want to invite in is
that the business is funded by the people that call

(01:07:06):
the club home. That's yes, it membership is important because
it helps make the business operate. But larger than that
to me is that it gives us the flexibility to
be able to go and do and advocate in ways
that are important to us without being worried about anybody else.
I'll give you an example. I was talking to a
major bank a couple of years ago, and I didn't

(01:07:29):
like their program, and more importantly, I didn't like the
fact that the way that they advertise to black folks
I did not think and still do nothing actually would
show up in their numbers right, the way that they
were trying to make the marketing feel like they didn't
like the conversation that I had with them, all right,
and so in a lot of contexts, right, that would

(01:07:52):
mean that a sponsor's gone, right, like stakeholders gone, and
now I might have to go and make the size
of my staff smaller. But because we're a membership organization
and black folks keep this thing rolling, I wasn't worried
about that conversation, and so what do they do. They
pulled every single of event that that they were going

(01:08:14):
to host with us for the entire course of the year.
That business actually has never recovered. But you know, but
you know what that means to me, Absolutely nothing, right
because on principle, if if they could not take me
advocating for the folks that I serve every single day,
and the way that I was talking about, which I

(01:08:34):
found was principal in my mind, that's okay. I'm funded
by the group of people that make TGS what it is.
So part of us participating with us right gives flexibility
to businesses to then go and be one hundred percent

(01:08:55):
unconcerned about how anybody feels about whatever it is that
businesses is doing or saying. I would strongly encourage people
to take on that mentality when you have an option right.
And if there's a group that I'm disappointed in, it's
the group of people that could and don't right because

(01:09:17):
they believe that the ice is colder at some other
business that we're competing against. That's the group that's unacceptable
to me. Everybody else, Thank you for any way that
you've been supporting, But to the group of people that
intentionally go out of their way to avoid us because
they want to go drink some colder ice water elsewhere, that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
In this day and time is unacceptable as it should be.
So this is the last question of the day. I
want you to give us, you know, advice. Give advice
to a young black kid who's watching you. He wants
to be an entrepreneur. I want you to give him
the best advice you can. And then tell us what
is the biggest that you've learned throughout all of this process,

(01:10:02):
through the most important thing that you learned.

Speaker 5 (01:10:06):
I'm gonna say something that I said earlier, right because
to me, it really is the most important thing with business.
For anybody that's out there that is thinking about either
starting a business or expanding the one that you have,
keep going. This is not random work, right right. There's
a reason. There are a lot of ideas out there, y'all.

(01:10:28):
We could come up with an idea on the spot
to go solve anything. But there's a reason that that
thing is stuck with you. So wake up tomorrow knowing
that the conditions are never going to be perfect. You
will never wake up and the birds will be chirping,
and the sun will be shining through the window, and
you'll have the perfect amount of money in your account

(01:10:49):
and everything will be set. There's always going to be
a good reason to not make your business happen each day,
go forward anyway, knowing that it's not random and there
is a community people. Look at. This is the only
job I've ever had. I showed up back in Atlanta
in my early twenties and had a community of people
fight through COVID, through acquisition and reacquisition to now have

(01:11:14):
this business exist ten years later. So there's a group
of people that will support you and be straightforward with him,
be honest and authentic in your work, but the community
will show it for you in the ways that you
need to to make your business of reality.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Thank you so much, man, Continue to be the inspiration
and motivation man twenty four years old with mine like
that and the weird with thought and just the energy
to just do what you've done is just inspiring. Man.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
Oh he never he didn't say what's the biggest thing
he learned?

Speaker 5 (01:11:47):
Look, okay, yeah you didn't, So I'll be quick. The
biggest thing that I that I've learned throughout this whole
thing is that community rooted businesses, businesses that really are
about serving people. One of my favorite quotes in life
is that you can't you can't lead people if you
don't love people. If you stay focused there, right, if
you stay in deep love of the people that you

(01:12:10):
have a shot to have a shot with every single day,
and that is a blessing. There are a lot of
businesses and people that do not have a shot right
now that if you, if you stay wetted there though,
that it'll all work out, right. And then everybody else
that you think has got it figured out, they're just
like you right now trying to figure it out. And
that's okay, right, Like I thought everybody had some some

(01:12:32):
cheat code to how to make all of this go
a lot more smoothly, and that the you know, the
some super ser sort of superpowers, that's not what exists
out there, right. We're all trying to make it happen
each and every day, and all of the big amazing
stuff is also reserved for you too.

Speaker 4 (01:12:51):
It's also reserved for you too. We're not playing a
sord that's the word.

Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
And you.

Speaker 4 (01:12:56):
Ryan Wilson of The Gathering Spot has joined us today
with the.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
On how to push forward.

Speaker 4 (01:13:03):
In business and to depend on your community that it
can work. It is possible, and you have to be confident,
because as you can see, Ryan is a very confident man,
and I appreciate that. About every time I have been
in your presence, Ryan, I felt the confidence coming off
of you that you know what, it's going to work out.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
We're gonna make this happen.

Speaker 4 (01:13:26):
The people are gonna show up, don't worry that nobody's
coming or whatever. You believe in your model, you believe
in your business, you believe in your list that you've built,
and you believe in us, and we believe in you,
and so all of that together has to make for
a perfect it's a recipe for success. So thank you

(01:13:47):
for continuing to do what you do, and thank you
for just being a strong family man, a black man
making it happen in the world, and not being afraid
to be in business and care about the business of
black people on every single level because you be talking
straight to them.

Speaker 5 (01:14:05):
I appreciate the work that y'all do and I received that, Look,
I'm not special, right we we we every single day
are trying to figure it out like everybody else. I
just feel like I'm here, right and because I'm here,
that means that I've gotta I've got to go and
try to make make the best of of what I've
been blessed to be able to go and do. And again,
I don't think that's a that's a mean thing. I

(01:14:26):
think that's a wee thing. So my my confidence is
more rooted in us than it is in this Like
I'm not I'm trying to figure it out like everybody else.
But the people that I see that are out there
that I should be I guess intimidated by. I encourage
everybody to just go spend some time with those folks.

(01:14:48):
You'll find that you're as capable as what they are.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
Absolutely, thank you, Thank you, letter.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
You shout out to your brother, Ryan Wilson, the co
founder and CEO of the gather inSpot.

Speaker 3 (01:15:00):
Excellent, inspiring interview.

Speaker 1 (01:15:03):
A lot of information.

Speaker 5 (01:15:04):
Ryan.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
He knows what he's talking about. He's been doing it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:07):
And you don't have to agree on every point, right,
But I don't know, like because people will listen to
one thing that I said, or Ryan said, or you said,
and then that becomes like the big thing.

Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
Meanwhile, there's like yars.

Speaker 4 (01:15:20):
It's seventy five percent theory that if seventy five percent
of what you're saying is right, then you're likely going
to be successful. If only twenty five percent of what
you're doing is working, that's a failure. On Yeah, that's
my I'm still on that from last week.

Speaker 3 (01:15:42):
Yes, and I agree. I truly agree with you. Man.

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
We have to we gotta do the eighty twenty. It's
the eighty twenty. It's not really seventy first, the eighty twenty.
I'm going to eighty man. You know, so, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:15:55):
Ryan is really smart. I think obviously his experiences in
the world open his mind. That's why we say that
we have to make sure that our children have experiences,
that they get to see things, that they get to
gold places, and you know, travel outside of just the
square miles of where they live, where they go to

(01:16:17):
school and whatever. They have to have additional experiences. They've
got to hear you speaking about things that's different and
know that what you do that is not of again,
the square miles around where they live. You have to
create that for them so that they can believe in

(01:16:37):
themselves that there's something bigger. And I could go towards it.
No matter what I got to do, I can claw
and get there. Because if she could get there, what
makes her different from me? Right, the only thing that
makes her different from me is that she's willing to
do it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
She's willing to.

Speaker 4 (01:16:56):
Do and maybe somebody helped put it on I don't know,
but we're just gonna assume she's willing to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
And you're sitting around like, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:17:04):
That's that thing about not being afraid that back in
the ten things that we're not taking into the new year,
being afraid is one of those things for sure for.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
Me, definitely, you know I always I've been well, not always.
I've been resorting back to this thing that Erica Ford
told me. And we was having a discussion. You know,
Eric is hard, and I was talking about my experience.
She's like, you can't always judge everything on your small lens, right,
If you just judge the whole, your whole life or

(01:17:35):
life in general, on your small lens of what you experienced,
then you're going to be missing so many things. So
and so that must have really it really resonated.

Speaker 5 (01:17:47):
It was because I was like, what you mean?

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
Then I started and then as you start learning more
and you start seeing more and it starts opening your
mind more, then you start saying, well, my lens really
was small because I didn't understand that, because I never
experienced that.

Speaker 3 (01:18:01):
I hadn't been around that to give.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
A proper prognosis or diagnosis of that situation.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
So the more we learn, the more we're able to give.

Speaker 4 (01:18:09):
I think you have to approach life knowing that you
don't know everything, right. I approach life like that every day,
and sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
It gets in the way because.

Speaker 4 (01:18:19):
Sometimes I do know, and I will second guess myself
because I'm so committed to saying I don't know everything.
I'm here to learn, I'm trying to figure it out
when sometimes we actually know, we actually know the answer,
we actually know the path, we actually.

Speaker 1 (01:18:39):
Know the information.

Speaker 4 (01:18:41):
But I try to show up in spaces as a
person who is willing to listen more than I talk.

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
And I'll tell you.

Speaker 4 (01:18:52):
Being on my particular committee on the transition team for
Mayor Electmondanni has opened me up to how much I
need to get up to speed on some other some
new things. Right Because I started in violence prevention and
community safety at a certain place, and of course if

(01:19:14):
I was sitting in a room with another person who
has is just kind of not just but you know,
maybe they're ten years in, I would be, you know,
talking in circles, right, I'm sure around them, and they
would be learning, if paying attention, writing it down and
like wow, listen to what she knows. So as I

(01:19:35):
have been in space with people that for the last
several years, their job has been to just study what
I've lived through, and that's what sets us apart. Like
I'm speaking to I know what it is to have
to go to victim services because your partner or your

(01:19:56):
child's father or whatever, a person in your family was
killed and you got to fight through the red tape
of victim services. I know what it is to be
on the other end of raising a young black male
without their father, and what happens with the education system
when you don't have two parents able to ping pong
in and out and make sure that the kid is

(01:20:18):
staying on track. I know what it is to now
have your parents stepping in to help you because.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
There's only one parent, Like, these are things.

Speaker 4 (01:20:27):
That you can't tell me about because I know those things,
and and I you know, I know, I know I
know too much about burying children and victims and families
and what they go through, and how the courts, the
red tape of the courts, and the bureaucracy and the corruption.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
I know so much about that. I could speak about
it all day.

Speaker 4 (01:20:51):
But being around these people who are coming from all
different places, academics, people who have studied this stuff, I'm
I'm like, oh, man, I could also learn this. So
I have learned to walk in And it's not that
I can't get into conversation, but I'm listening more. And
something happened to me today. I was on a call

(01:21:13):
that was for two hours, and I listened for the
first hour and twenty minutes. And after hour and twenty
minutes of me just listening, I asked two questions Earlier,
I began to ask provoking questions that made us start
talking about, like we've discussed six different things.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
Now where we going with this?

Speaker 4 (01:21:36):
How do we get this plane all the way in
the air? And then where are we seeing a landing spot?
And that's what I do.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
And when I and I didn't.

Speaker 4 (01:21:46):
It's not that I didn't feel confident, because it wasn't
that type of call, but I was HM oh okay,
M trying to learn instead of trying to present myself
as the smartest, the most knowable.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
No, you know, the most notable the person.

Speaker 5 (01:22:02):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:22:02):
I went there to hear and then I found my
rhythm in the song. It was a song you had people,
here's what needs to happen on this here's And then
I said, my job is how.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
Do we get this plane we're going up?

Speaker 4 (01:22:21):
Because we're talking about it, I mean, you could feel
the energy of people saying, we've been trying to deal
with this, We've been dealing with that, We've been dealing
with you.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
Know these issues. Okay, now we've got to take it somewhere.

Speaker 4 (01:22:33):
And then once we're in the air, now we have
to figure out what that landing place is where we
can actually accomplish the things we've been talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
And I realized.

Speaker 4 (01:22:43):
That that that is the thing that makes my creativity
turn into the actual execution of a plan. So'm I
so listening and not knowing everything and being willing to
learn and then knowing into to bring your skills to
the table. I think that is what's that is what

(01:23:07):
I feel most accomplished about in my life. As we
end the year, and starting in twenty twenty six, I
don't want to go talking more. I want to learn
more so I can figure out what the evolution is
of even my own story.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
And that is a word right there. She says, you
got to drive the plane and land the plane, take
the head. And with that said, we want to say
thank you for going through a whole year with us
at twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (01:23:36):
We made it. Somehow. It was definitely the.

Speaker 4 (01:23:38):
Say, oh you mean the year we made it? Oh no,
it's been a tough Yeah, I've been saying, it's like
it was. This year was as if somebody had their
nails on a chalkboard and they just stip on screech
all day. Everything like it never ever ended.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
And we have no ear plugs and nothing. Your skin
was crawling, your tee was itching. It was the worst feeling.
But somehow we survive that. And if you hear you
know and you're on your way into twenty twenty six,
we applaud you, We love you, We say thank you
for the support. Continue to support us. We're gonna continue
to bring the rawness, the realness, everything we got. We're

(01:24:17):
gonna put it on the line for y'all. I'm not
gonna always be right. Tamika d marries not gonna always
be wrong, But in twenty twenty six, we're gonna both
always be authentic.

Speaker 1 (01:24:29):
That

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Not What It Post To Be - The Business of Belonging (Guest: Ryan Wilson)

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Mysonne

Tamika Mallory

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Not What It Post To Be - The Business of Belonging (Guest: Ryan Wilson)