Today on The Breakfast Club, Arian Simone Talks 'Fearless Freedom,' West Africa; Queen Wa, Economic Freedom, Fearless Fund, Federal Lawsuit. Listen For More!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hold up.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Every day I wake up.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
Wake your ass up. The Breakfast Club. You all finished
or y'all done? Morning, everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are
The Breakfast Club. Lawn LaRose is here as well. We
got a special guest in the building.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Yes, indeed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
She's the co-founder of The Fearless Fund, Arianne Simone.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome back. Aw, thank you. Good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
How you feeling this morning?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good. You look good.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Beautiful.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Thank you. I spent half my time on the continent
of Africa, and I spend a lot of time here now.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
And America is in a very interesting place.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
So you're ready to go back?
Speaker 5 (00:39):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
You're ready to go back. So for people that.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Don't know last time you came up here, explain why
you came up here last time and what happened there briefly,
you know, give people an update.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
A little bit.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Oh, I run the Fearless Fund, which is the nation
and world's first venture capital fund built by women of
color for women of color.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It was targeted by the anti-DEI movement.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Millions and millions of dollars. And yes, we were hit
with a federal lawsuit. So that's why I was here.
And I did not know we were the beginning of
this anti-DEI movement. When things started off, I thought we
were like a isolated situation. And then it was court
case after court case after court case being filed.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
And now you're telling your story. You have a new
book called Fearless Freedom.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
What did you learn from the Fearless Fund lawsuit that actually.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I guess, scared you?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
That scared me?
Speaker 6 (01:26):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
One thing I learned that I do talk about in
the book, that when you're going through a storm, that
you only have time.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
To talk to people who can solve your problem. Man. Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I don't need to do that in a storm. I'll
do that in the sunshine.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
I don't talk to nobody that can't help me solve
no problem.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
No, seriously, because you allow distractions to interrupt your result.
So I definitely learned that. I learned that elections are
extremely consequential.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I went through a federal court case and literally every
judge that ruled against us was a Trump appointed judge.
Every Obama, every Clinton appointed judge ruled in our favor.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I said, can y'all give me a Bush appointed judge? Like,
what is this?
Speaker 4 (02:10):
But the last administration and prior to the Biden administration,
they put in like 200 and something federal judges.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
And that's what the result of that was. I was
living that.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
In a Biden administration, but dealing with the consequences and
actions that took place in the Trump administration.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Wow, wow.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Was that part of the reason you decided to go
to another continent?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I've been back and forth to Africa for over a decade.
And I've always, I knew at some point I wanted
to be in both places. And then I ended up
marrying a Ghanaian, too. But I actually met my husband
one day. I was looking for like an apartment there.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Wow. So, yes.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
What made you think, I need to have this just
in case?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Oh, what I was dealing with. Oh, I got multiple
citizenships and everything. I got to get up out of here.
I got to get up out of here. I'm Grenadian.
I'm a lot of stuff. Because I said, if I
need options. I want to make sure I have them.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Was the government coming at you that bad where you said,
I'm going to need these options?
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
I mean, it was to the point where people were
surveilling my house. I had to have detail.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
It was a lot. I said, why is this work
this disruptive?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
And then I had to remember, before the Fearless Fund existed,
the average fundraise for a black woman was only $ 30, 000.
We came on the scene cutting million-dollar checks. And then
on top of that, there were only 34 black women
who ever had raised a million dollars before we existed.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
By the next year, we were at 99, and a
lot of these people were ours.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
And I don't know why that little bit of what
I would consider a small piece of a pie would
be so disturbing, but it clearly caused all this disruption.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
What did that experience teach you about how America really
views targeted economic opportunity?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And what I mean by that is people tell us,
to build wealth, right?
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Black people, build wealth, build wealth, basically pull yourself up
by your bootstraps. Then you have an organization that's trying
to help us do that. But then now you're being
targeted because you did it.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
You're correct.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
So what it let me know that it's not just
enough for us to build things. We have to have
the resources to defend what we build. And I learned
that because we saw Black Wall Street, but we couldn't
defend it. You know, so it's not just enough for
us to build. We're great at building communities. We're great
at coalition building. We're great at building systems, supporting each
other's businesses. But if we don't have the resources to
(04:21):
defend it, we leave ourselves vulnerable. And that's what I
learned from that.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
How much did you spend in defending your business?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
You're asking them type of questions.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
No, I don't mind. It wasn't even just that. We
had some of our attorneys were pro bono. Some were not.
But it was more so what it cost us in general.
And for me, any amount of money... is worth our liberation.
So I had to keep that in mind. But when
we got in the court case, I think I had
just closed on 23 million and I had about 100
(04:53):
plus million in diligence.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I had to risk that.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Because people, of course, didn't want to put money into
a vehicle that's in a legal situation.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And I was like, oh my gosh. I'm like, you
can either fold right now or you're going to have
to be willing to risk this money. And I had
to take that risk.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
What were they looking for?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
We lost a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
What were they looking for?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
They were looking to stop race-based funding, as he was
even stating, and even gender-based funding.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So had we lost, luckily the case got.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Permanently dismissed after 13 months, but had we lost at
the Supreme Court level, it would have done what his
previous case did, was when he won at the Supreme
Court level and they eliminated affirmative action at all the colleges.
So they were looking to stop this completely. Race-based funding
and gender-based funding, which would have stopped millions and millions
of dollars from coming into our communities.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
Can you educate the stupid real quick? And by the stupid,
I mean the people who will say, well, you know,
if you have a fund that invests specifically in black women,
what if I had a fund that only wanted to invest.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
In white men?
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Well, the reason why it's problematic is because we're actually
solving a disparity. This wouldn't exist if the disparity didn't exist.
And black people in America may be a minority, but
globally we are a majority. We're like around 20 percent.
I know the Asian and Chinese community are right behind us.
But when you suppress and oppress the majority of the people,
(06:15):
it's no good for the whole. So you have to
make sure that that demographic has the resources that they
need because they're going to be the ones who have
to lift everybody else up.
Speaker 7 (06:25):
Right. But just in reading like research about you and
about this, I was looking up the numbers and I
saw that women of color make up nearly 20 percent
of the U.S.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Population.
Speaker 7 (06:35):
But we only are point three nine percent of venture
capital funding. And then that money that is used in VCs,
which are controlled by white men, it's our money because
we're populating it into the economy.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
But they're putting it into white owned businesses. You have
it exactly right. You read it right.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
And pension funds are the largest investors in the private
equity and venture capital space. Pension funds are built off
the backs of public workers. So you're talking teachers, police officers.
And when you look at the demographics of the people
who made up the pension fund and then it goes
up into this industry, which is 92 percent white male,
then goes.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Up into these white startups.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
It's the circulation of wealth and it's widening the wealth
gap and at a very rapid rate right now because
the tech industry is pretty much moving so fast.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I was going to ask you, did you ever feel
like your life was threatened or was there ever a
threat on your life?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
I mean, plenty of threats were issued, but I don't
think I ever digested them as real.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Gotcha.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
For what, though? For helping people? Exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
We're trying to empower people?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
But you see, she had surveillance. She had to have details.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Oh, it was real. It was crazy, yeah. It was real.
And you were exactly right. I'm like, I'm not bothering nobody.
This is actually the business of doing good.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
And I'm like, why are people coming for me?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I'm actually doing something positive.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
So, yeah.
Speaker 7 (07:52):
How did it start? Like, how did the threat start?
Was it, like, small online stuff? Or, like, was it, like,
right out of town? Like, you would be places and, like, people.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Would, like.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Oh, no.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
It came out the gate when the court case hit.
I live also in a very conservative state in the States,
which is Georgia. And the moment we got sued, it
was all over the news. I didn't even know we
had a lawsuit. We found out in the news. The
staff is calling. There's a whole chapter of the book
called Emergency. And I'm like, wait a minute, what was
(08:19):
going on? So by this time, everybody who was pretty much,
I guess you would say, just that redneck energy, they
was like, get her out, get her out.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I was like, what is this?
Speaker 6 (08:28):
So that's what the emergency is, because I noticed that
you titled the first chapter Emergency.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Oh, yeah, that's the day the court case hits. Oh, okay, okay.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
But what was the emergency, and why do you think
people weren't paying attention to it?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I think it was an emergency. The moment I saw it,
I saw what they were suing us for, which was
they were saying we were violating the Civil Rights Act
of 1866. And I said, OK, civil rights acts were
put in place to progress us, not to hold us back.
And that's when I was like, oh, sound the alarm, somebody,
because if the community is not aware this is happening, this.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Is going to get out of control. And it did.
And it got out of control.
Speaker 7 (09:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Do you believe DEI is disappearing or is the language
around it simply changing? Because that's what some of these
corporations will say, like, we didn't actually roll it.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
We didn't get rid of them.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
We just had to change the language because we didn't
want to be targeted by the federal government.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
We will know the true answer to that probably in
about five years when we see the results. But what
I can say that research has said, Harvard has studies
that say when you take away race conscious programming, that
the black race gets left behind. So we will see
the numbers and the effects on this very soon. But
while that has been true in the past, the pendulum
(09:41):
is going to have to swing only because the country
is becoming more black and brown. That's right. So at
some point, for people to survive and for companies to thrive,
they'll be forced to figure it out if they don't
want to choose to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
What's the most difficult thing that you see for black
entrepreneurs and black businessmen at all?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
It's just simply that, the access to capital.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Is it capital or is it also the relationships?
Speaker 4 (10:05):
I think that's the biggest pain point. You're right when
you say relationships. So I tell people all the time,
a lot of times these stats exist. Even if you
take racism and sexism out of it, there's proximity.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
So just the networks in itself, you may not have
the access to those networks.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
But the biggest pain point is still the capital.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Because when you hear somebody talk about an IPO, and
I always wonder if those IPOs were offered to us first, right?
Or you hear real estate industry, or you hear somebody
investing into a company, when you hear these brands that
IPO and make all this money, I'm like, I wonder
if that was offered to us as well as to
those other companies.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
I'll say this, though, and I feel very strongly about this.
We have to solve this money problem because when you
come to the table with economic power, you're always in
a position to negotiate. The Jewish community can negotiate anything,
even if they're two to three percent of the population
because of their economic power. So when you say, is
it relationships? But see, that money will start unlocking some
(11:06):
relationships that didn't exist. So that's why I said if
we can get the money right first, it opens up
so many other opportunities. You can come to the table
and negotiate your voting rights. You can negotiate your health
care rights. Anything you want to negotiate, you're in position to.
But we can't keep as a community coming to the
table from an inferior position because that's what happens.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
You don't have as much to leverage.
Speaker 7 (11:29):
You know, what's crazy, too, about that is I'm seeing
a lot of. woman-owned businesses this year having to shut
down because they are getting to a point where they're
so successful, but they don't have the relationships to leverage
the success that they're having happen.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
They don't have anybody to call on.
Speaker 7 (11:42):
So they're literally shutting down their businesses and being like,
we'll be back when we figure it out. But it's like,
when do you figure it out if the resources just
aren't there and they're not checking for us?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You talking about black women? Yes.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Black women going to figure it out. I mean, I
don't like any of the attacks, but black women going.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
To figure it out. Do you follow the brand Hanifa?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
The clothing brand? I'm very familiar.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
And I know that it was due to the production,
meaning like she couldn't mass produce.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
So she was doing pre-orders.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
And then somewhere amongst that, she had to stop. And
she was like, I'll come back. She's going to figure
it out. I have full faith and full hope that
she is going to figure it out. It's just what
we do. And like I say, some things aren't by choice.
They're by force. By force, she's going to figure it out.
But that happens when you start off and she built
a quick demand and then couldn't meet the production needs.
And that happens sometimes in business.
Speaker 7 (12:28):
I guess it's like when do we get to a
point where before she got there, she had everything she
needed to help her figure out instead of having to
figure it out in a frenzy.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Oh, I agree with that. I mean, that's why we
do what we do day to day.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
That's why we distribute capital. That's why we do the
work we do. That's why we offer the resources that
we offer. And I think she probably screamed for help
a little earlier. she probably would have been okay. But
people have pride and whatnot. And I don't know her
story personally. I don't know this woman personally. But I'm like,
oh gosh, you let us know on the back end
that it's.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
About to be over.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
You said something just now that I feel like, you know,
it's something that hinders us too. The pride, right? Like
not being able just to reach out and ask for assistance.
Everybody wants to have this, let me do it on
my own.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Let me figure it out myself. I'm self-made.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Like, no, you got to connect with people. To me,
that's how you grow.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
It is how you grow. I even have a chapter
in a book called, like, The New Leader Is You.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
And I use the women of the civil rights movement,
the Rosa Parks, the Coretta Scott Kings, Juanita Abernathy, Dr.
Betty Shabazz, all of them just to even showcase. These
were all everyday people in that era.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
These are not celebrities.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
These are not people with big profiles or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
You're talking about a seamstress.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
These are people who just knew to stand up for
what they believed and they have the ability to affect change.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
And it's done in community.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
So when you say that, community is key to our progression.
It just really is.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
Sometimes, so what you said, Sharla, like some people do
call on people for help, but sometimes... People like, I
don't really like the word gatekeep, but like everybody don't
help you. You can have an open mouth because they
say closed mouths don't get fed. Yeah, but people time
and time again will reach out for help and they
don't get it. So that may be a discouraging factor
as well.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Oh, I've lived it.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Exactly.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
Like I'm pretty sure that you have asked so many
people for help, leaned on other people and they just
give you their ass to cancel. They don't hit you
back or they tell you they're going to do something
for you and it never happens.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
It never comes. It's true.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
And that's why community is important, only because you're going
to have to sometimes exchange somebody else's faith. You're going
to have to let somebody encourage you. But that happens,
and that's real.
Speaker 7 (14:35):
How do you keep your resilience through the rejection and
through all the things that you've been through, though?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I would definitely first and foremost say my faith. Community,
I believe in it.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
People encourage you. I mean, there was a time I
wanted to give it all up during this case. I'm
talking about I had to paperwork everything, just shut it
all down.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I'm like, I don't want the headache. I don't want this.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
And everybody who was around me and the people who
could help me solve my problem, they said, not today.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
They were like, you're not doing that. Like, it's just
not going to happen.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
But had those people not said that, I probably would
have just checked out.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I'm human.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
I love the title, too, Fearless Freedom, right?
Speaker 5 (15:17):
I'm a person that feels like fear isn't always bad.
because fear can stop you from making stupid decisions. So
what's the difference to you between fearlessness and recklessness?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I think there is a fine line. I will say that.
I will say that.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Your fearlessness is not going to cause harm or consequence later,
but your recklessness will.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
Does fearlessness ever become a prison for you? Are there
moments when you want to be scared, but you feel
like you can't show it?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Mm-mm. Because everybody expects you to be filled?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
No.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
I don't buy into the narrative of got to be
strong all the time or any of that.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
No. Mm-mm.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
What's one financial mistake you see people make all the
time that you wish that you could be there to be.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Like, don't do that?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Oh, people live beyond their means too much.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Like, literally, in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
People be lying.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Not that. No, I'm just saying. Like at my house,
people would be like, oh, gosh, she lives in the community.
And I would just laugh. They're like, oh, she's a millionaire.
She lives in the community.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
What the hell is a community?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
The hood.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
So I'm like, oh, no.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
When I got my house years ago, it was like $ 324.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
When it was paid off, I was like, I'm good. Car,
eight years. I was like, I'm good.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
It was not like a thing that I was chasing
or anything. I've always liked nice things, had nice things.
But being an entrepreneur, if I can't cash out on
my debt in that moment, I'm not putting myself in
that situation.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I'm just not. I'm just not. You'll see it in
the book.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
I've seen too many ups and downs of life and
disruption in entrepreneurship, and no one's free from disruption. But
because I saw it very young and very early on,
I was like, whatever I put on a loan or
anything like that, I got to be able to cash
out immediately.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
So, yeah.
Speaker 6 (17:08):
You said economic freedom isn't just a problem for entrepreneurs
and wealthy people.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
It's a problem for everybody.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Why do you feel like that?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Um.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Because of the systems that are in place and things
that have just taken place in history, economic freedom is
something that we all have to pursue. Because like I said,
when the biggest ethnic demographic is being suppressed and oppressed,
it does not serve the whole. So it's something that
everybody really needs to get a handle of because this
(17:37):
world is becoming more black and brown, not just this country.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
That's right. Your name, is your name now, like, what's
your name? Queen, what is it? Queen Wah, what is it?
Queen Wah of Dawa.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Granberry Bee. Granberry Bee. You're going to mess it all up.
Je suis la Renoir. That's what I said. I am
the Queen Wah of Dawa, Granberry Bee, and Cote d'Ivoire.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Oh, that's right.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
And y'all just launched Fearless Fun Africa, right?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
What are you seeing economically in Africa that black Americans
aren't paying enough attention to?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Oh, the opportunities.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
I mean, we hear about the risk in Africa, I think,
more than we hear about the opportunities. There's opportunities just
in the currency exchange. There's opportunities in the fixed deposits.
There's opportunities in their businesses. As entrepreneurs, we can set
up shop there because labor is just so much lower.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Now, I don't advise that of people who have.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Like a nine to five and they may be making
about like one hundred or eighty thousand dollars because you're
not going to get that same income.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Rate or salary over there.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
But if you are an entrepreneur, you can go over
there and do so much job creation and so much
wealth creation that's going to be so catalytic to see
a whole society rise. Like, I'm excited about Fearless Fund
Africa because while we've raised, you know, millions and millions
and millions in the States, to me, I feel like
I still can't even move the percentage. I still can't even,
I still can't even, like, get that 2% to move
(18:58):
for women or that 0.39% to move for women of color.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
But on.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Say a million bucks, I could probably service a thousand
companies there. And then I can see a whole community rise.
And I am excited about that.
Speaker 7 (19:13):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
You know, people always talk about reconnecting with Africa, right?
Like black Americans, y'all talk about reconnecting with Africa. Like
once you started actually doing business there, what did you
realize that we romanticized about Africa?
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Oh, I will say this because I live there. And
I live in Africa and visit in Africa. It's two
different things. Mind you, it's still a developing place and
it's still an emerging market. So, like, I do miss
my Amazon. I do, like, miss some of my conveniences.
So I would think that sometimes we just romanticize of
going home but not realizing what is this going home
(19:45):
environment going to look like for you?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I loved Ghana. The nightlife in Ghana was amazing. I
went to Ghana.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I live in a cry. I live in airport. Oh, man.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
We had a ball. Silver Fox Script Club.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
She like, I did.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
I'm not acknowledging. Ball.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I went there. I don't remember half the places I
was at, but I was there.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
We had a ball.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
We had a great time.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Oh, no.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
The sun came up. First of all, Ghana's a vibe.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It is.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Ghana's a vibe. I'm queen next door in Cote d'Ivoire,
but Ghana is a vibe.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
How far is that from, you said Cote d'Ivoire?
Speaker 4 (20:16):
They're next door. Like, literally, I take a 30-minute flight.
I just go back and forth. I became a queen
in 2022. And I talk about it in the book because-
I was thrown off.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah. I had no clue what was really going on.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
So what was going on? What is the requirement for
being a queen, what you just said?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Because you've been calling yourself a queen forever.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
The traditional rulers have to basically instill you. And the
government has signed off on it and everything in my situation.
So I don't have an honorary title. I'm a Royal Majesty,
first of my name. And this took place after I
had built a school there. And my chief of staff
called me and said, well, Arianne, when you get there,
you know, they're going to have a.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Stylist for you. I said, for what?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
I'm wearing T-shirts and a jeans. I'm cutting a ribbon.
And she was like, oh, you don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
She said, they're crowning you queen.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
And I just took it as like a joke. I
was like, oh, okay, whatever. They'll probably give me some
plaque or something. How did I know I'd be on
the phone to this day every single week at these meetings, right?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
I was like, oh, this is real responsibility. But I
have a nephew who prophesied this when he was two.
So five years before, he kept telling me I was
about to be crowned an African queen. And every year
he would tell me.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
And then I said, do you love your mother? And
he said, of course I do. I said, why don't
you ever tell her that? And he paused and he said,
because she's not.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And I said, oh. I was like, okay, Carter, what's
going on here?
Speaker 4 (21:34):
So the day I got that call and realized they
said the mayor, the senators, the governors, everybody's hands on
deck for her coronation, I was like, Kelly, you know
what Carter's been saying?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And he's in the background.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
He's like, I've been trying to tell you.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
He was seven at the time.
Speaker 7 (21:50):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
So you did it with jeans and a T-shirt on.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
No. They redressed me. Like you said, somebody was going
to be there.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
If these corporations continue to back away from DEI, Is
the answer to convince them to come back?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
I don't think the answer is to necessarily convince them.
They're going to be forced, like I said, even if
they don't choose it, just due to the demographics and
the way things are growing.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I don't know. Maybe I just don't like the posture
of begging.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
So maybe that's what it is. Maybe that's what it
is for me. So they're going to do it regardless.
The pendulum's going to swing.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, this administration is not going to be in forever.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
At some point, and even if they were, like I said,
we're going to be so overpopulated that you're going to
have to figure out how are you going to have customers?
How are you going to cater to this audience? You're
going to be forced to figure it out at some point.
It may be 10 years from now, but if you
don't choose it, you will be forced. So I don't
think it's a need to ask. Either you're going to
stand by what is a business case or not. I
(22:51):
asked actually Costco the other day, the staff there. I said,
what made y'all stand strong? They're investors in both our funds.
What made you stand strong through all this? And they said,
we don't even view it as standing strong.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
It's just good business.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
They said, the business case itself is enough for us
to pursue our business this way.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Period.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I was like, okay.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
And I just feel like black people, that's why I
love what y'all do, because I just feel like black
people should be building enough capital that we don't need
corporate America's permission to do anything. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
We've got to become self-sufficient. But like I said, in
addition to being self-sufficient, we got to be able to
defend it. Because the second that you build it, If
somebody comes to get you, you can't be vulnerable.
Speaker 7 (23:29):
How are you having conversations with people about the mind
state around money? We have these capitalist conversations and people
talk certain ways when you start making money, when you're
bringing money into your business, about you and your business.
How do you change that thinking so that we know
that we should be out here getting all this money
in and coming up in things and it's okay to
do that?
Speaker 4 (23:47):
When you asked that question, it made me realize or
reminded me of how often people People call it selling
out when you sell your company.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Lord have mercy.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
He said, Lord have mercy.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
And it's really you selling up. You ain't selling out.
You're just gaining more wealth.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
You can't sell out if you want to buy in.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
But I think over time, people are starting to get that.
I hope we've gotten out of that.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
I still think some of it is still there. I'm
not in disagreement with you. But I think that our
level of exposure, our reach, our Internet, everything now is
where we can see it. We can see it now.
I see when people set up a company, it's less
backlash as before. So it's getting less and less. But
it needs to eliminate.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Because right now, it's a blessing.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
But it goes back to the capital conversation.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
You start a business, you grow it, you scale it,
you sell it, you get the capital. And now you
got more capital to reinvest into your community. That's my mentality.
Speaker 7 (24:40):
Some people don't know, business owners don't know the difference
between having a good business and having a business that
is investable. Like you can invest in it. Because sometimes
it's different.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Well, good business should be investable.
Speaker 7 (24:50):
Yeah, but I think sometimes people think, I mean, maybe
it's like a personal thing. Like I've met people who
have a great business.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
They have customers. They're profiting.
Speaker 7 (24:57):
But when they go out to people for investments, people
are like poking holes across their business plan and their
business maps, and they don't want to invest in it
just yet. They're like, oh, come back, you know, next
year or Q4 or whatever when we see a bit
more of whatever it is that you're doing.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
That's just part of like we're saying the restrictions of
access to capital. That person that you're describing isn't doing
anything wrong. You know, the fact that somebody is not
willing to give them a loan or invest and whatnot,
that's not a signal that they're doing something wrong. You
can have a completely healthy business and still be running
up against that obstacle. Matter of fact, we've even invested
in somebody who's dealing with that now.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
She has a contract she.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Recently got for 20 million ARR three years in a
row and looking for investors.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
So it happens to good businesses all the time. That's
not like a sign that somebody's not investable.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
This is my last question.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
If fearless freedom works exactly the way you want it to,
what does somebody stop being afraid of after they read it?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
It's a few things.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Yikes.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I would say people stop being afraid of having difficult
conversations because I go over what the spirit of fear
is costing us. And I said, if you really write
down what your fear is costing you, you'll realize it's
too expensive to operate that way.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
So that's one thing I can say.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
What I'm excited about this book doing in the earth,
I have a whole playbook in here. Though the court
case may be the backdrop, it shows you in the
book of how we can actually have an equitable society.
I have policy examples. I give a roadmap for government.
I give a roadmap for corporations. I give a roadmap
for VCs. Like that this is really something possible that
(26:40):
we can actually achieve.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
So I'm excited about that.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
And for everyday person, what I'm excited about is the
fact that everybody's dealing with pivots right now. Everybody's dealing
with failure right now. We have 600,000 black women not
even employed right now. This book gives you that kind
of encouragement that, okay, if I can pivot, I saw
this story this woman went through, I can keep going.
So I'm looking to see all of the catalytic inspiration
(27:05):
and empowerment that's going to come from it.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
All right, well, thank you for.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Joining us this morning.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
Go get fearless freedom right now. A manifesto for unlocking
wealth and equality for all.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
That's right. It's Arian Simone. It's the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Come on in.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
Queen. Queen.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
You say it. Queen.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Okay. Of Dawa, Graham, Burby, and Cote d'Ivoire. What was that?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
In the Ivory Coast. Yes, Queen for short.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
It's the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Come on in. Hold up. Every day I wake up.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Wake your ass up. It's the Breakfast Club. Y'all finished
or y'all done?
Hold up.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Every day I wake up.
Speaker 3 (00:03):
Wake your ass up. The Breakfast Club. You all finished
or y'all done? Morning, everybody.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are
The Breakfast Club. Lawn LaRose is here as well. We
got a special guest in the building.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Yes, indeed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
She's the co-founder of The Fearless Fund, Arianne Simone.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome back. Aw, thank you. Good morning.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
How you feeling this morning?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good. You look good.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Beautiful.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Thank you. I spent half my time on the continent
of Africa, and I spend a lot of time here now.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
And America is in a very interesting place.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
So you're ready to go back?
Speaker 5 (00:39):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
You're ready to go back. So for people that.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Don't know last time you came up here, explain why
you came up here last time and what happened there briefly,
you know, give people an update.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
A little bit.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Oh, I run the Fearless Fund, which is the nation
and world's first venture capital fund built by women of
color for women of color.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
It was targeted by the anti-DEI movement.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Millions and millions of dollars. And yes, we were hit
with a federal lawsuit. So that's why I was here.
And I did not know we were the beginning of
this anti-DEI movement. When things started off, I thought we
were like a isolated situation. And then it was court
case after court case after court case being filed.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
And now you're telling your story. You have a new
book called Fearless Freedom.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
What did you learn from the Fearless Fund lawsuit that actually.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I guess, scared you?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
That scared me?
Speaker 6 (01:26):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
One thing I learned that I do talk about in
the book, that when you're going through a storm, that
you only have time.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
To talk to people who can solve your problem. Man. Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
I don't need to do that in a storm. I'll
do that in the sunshine.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
I don't talk to nobody that can't help me solve
no problem.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
No, seriously, because you allow distractions to interrupt your result.
So I definitely learned that. I learned that elections are
extremely consequential.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I went through a federal court case and literally every
judge that ruled against us was a Trump appointed judge.
Every Obama, every Clinton appointed judge ruled in our favor.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I said, can y'all give me a Bush appointed judge? Like,
what is this?
Speaker 4 (02:10):
But the last administration and prior to the Biden administration,
they put in like 200 and something federal judges.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
And that's what the result of that was. I was
living that.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
In a Biden administration, but dealing with the consequences and
actions that took place in the Trump administration.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Wow, wow.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Was that part of the reason you decided to go
to another continent?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I've been back and forth to Africa for over a decade.
And I've always, I knew at some point I wanted
to be in both places. And then I ended up
marrying a Ghanaian, too. But I actually met my husband
one day. I was looking for like an apartment there.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Wow. So, yes.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
What made you think, I need to have this just
in case?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Oh, what I was dealing with. Oh, I got multiple
citizenships and everything. I got to get up out of here.
I got to get up out of here. I'm Grenadian.
I'm a lot of stuff. Because I said, if I
need options. I want to make sure I have them.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Was the government coming at you that bad where you said,
I'm going to need these options?
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
I mean, it was to the point where people were
surveilling my house. I had to have detail.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
It was a lot. I said, why is this work
this disruptive?
Speaker 4 (03:15):
And then I had to remember, before the Fearless Fund existed,
the average fundraise for a black woman was only $ 30, 000.
We came on the scene cutting million-dollar checks. And then
on top of that, there were only 34 black women
who ever had raised a million dollars before we existed.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
By the next year, we were at 99, and a
lot of these people were ours.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
And I don't know why that little bit of what
I would consider a small piece of a pie would
be so disturbing, but it clearly caused all this disruption.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
What did that experience teach you about how America really
views targeted economic opportunity?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And what I mean by that is people tell us,
to build wealth, right?
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Black people, build wealth, build wealth, basically pull yourself up
by your bootstraps. Then you have an organization that's trying
to help us do that. But then now you're being
targeted because you did it.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
You're correct.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
So what it let me know that it's not just
enough for us to build things. We have to have
the resources to defend what we build. And I learned
that because we saw Black Wall Street, but we couldn't
defend it. You know, so it's not just enough for
us to build. We're great at building communities. We're great
at coalition building. We're great at building systems, supporting each
other's businesses. But if we don't have the resources to
(04:21):
defend it, we leave ourselves vulnerable. And that's what I
learned from that.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
How much did you spend in defending your business?
Speaker 3 (04:29):
You're asking them type of questions.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
No, I don't mind. It wasn't even just that. We
had some of our attorneys were pro bono. Some were not.
But it was more so what it cost us in general.
And for me, any amount of money... is worth our liberation.
So I had to keep that in mind. But when
we got in the court case, I think I had
just closed on 23 million and I had about 100
(04:53):
plus million in diligence.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I had to risk that.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Because people, of course, didn't want to put money into
a vehicle that's in a legal situation.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And I was like, oh my gosh. I'm like, you
can either fold right now or you're going to have
to be willing to risk this money. And I had
to take that risk.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
What were they looking for?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
We lost a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
What were they looking for?
Speaker 4 (05:13):
They were looking to stop race-based funding, as he was
even stating, and even gender-based funding.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So had we lost, luckily the case got.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Permanently dismissed after 13 months, but had we lost at
the Supreme Court level, it would have done what his
previous case did, was when he won at the Supreme
Court level and they eliminated affirmative action at all the colleges.
So they were looking to stop this completely. Race-based funding
and gender-based funding, which would have stopped millions and millions
of dollars from coming into our communities.
Speaker 5 (05:43):
Can you educate the stupid real quick? And by the stupid,
I mean the people who will say, well, you know,
if you have a fund that invests specifically in black women,
what if I had a fund that only wanted to invest.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
In white men?
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Well, the reason why it's problematic is because we're actually
solving a disparity. This wouldn't exist if the disparity didn't exist.
And black people in America may be a minority, but
globally we are a majority. We're like around 20 percent.
I know the Asian and Chinese community are right behind us.
But when you suppress and oppress the majority of the people,
(06:15):
it's no good for the whole. So you have to
make sure that that demographic has the resources that they
need because they're going to be the ones who have
to lift everybody else up.
Speaker 7 (06:25):
Right. But just in reading like research about you and
about this, I was looking up the numbers and I
saw that women of color make up nearly 20 percent
of the U.S.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Population.
Speaker 7 (06:35):
But we only are point three nine percent of venture
capital funding. And then that money that is used in VCs,
which are controlled by white men, it's our money because
we're populating it into the economy.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
But they're putting it into white owned businesses. You have
it exactly right. You read it right.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
And pension funds are the largest investors in the private
equity and venture capital space. Pension funds are built off
the backs of public workers. So you're talking teachers, police officers.
And when you look at the demographics of the people
who made up the pension fund and then it goes
up into this industry, which is 92 percent white male,
then goes.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Up into these white startups.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
It's the circulation of wealth and it's widening the wealth
gap and at a very rapid rate right now because
the tech industry is pretty much moving so fast.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I was going to ask you, did you ever feel
like your life was threatened or was there ever a
threat on your life?
Speaker 4 (07:24):
I mean, plenty of threats were issued, but I don't
think I ever digested them as real.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Gotcha.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
For what, though? For helping people? Exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
We're trying to empower people?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
But you see, she had surveillance. She had to have details.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Oh, it was real. It was crazy, yeah. It was real.
And you were exactly right. I'm like, I'm not bothering nobody.
This is actually the business of doing good.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
And I'm like, why are people coming for me?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I'm actually doing something positive.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
So, yeah.
Speaker 7 (07:52):
How did it start? Like, how did the threat start?
Was it, like, small online stuff? Or, like, was it, like,
right out of town? Like, you would be places and, like, people.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Would, like.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Oh, no.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
It came out the gate when the court case hit.
I live also in a very conservative state in the States,
which is Georgia. And the moment we got sued, it
was all over the news. I didn't even know we
had a lawsuit. We found out in the news. The
staff is calling. There's a whole chapter of the book
called Emergency. And I'm like, wait a minute, what was
(08:19):
going on? So by this time, everybody who was pretty much,
I guess you would say, just that redneck energy, they
was like, get her out, get her out.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I was like, what is this?
Speaker 6 (08:28):
So that's what the emergency is, because I noticed that
you titled the first chapter Emergency.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Oh, yeah, that's the day the court case hits. Oh, okay, okay.
Speaker 6 (08:36):
But what was the emergency, and why do you think
people weren't paying attention to it?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I think it was an emergency. The moment I saw it,
I saw what they were suing us for, which was
they were saying we were violating the Civil Rights Act
of 1866. And I said, OK, civil rights acts were
put in place to progress us, not to hold us back.
And that's when I was like, oh, sound the alarm, somebody,
because if the community is not aware this is happening, this.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Is going to get out of control. And it did.
And it got out of control.
Speaker 7 (09:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Do you believe DEI is disappearing or is the language
around it simply changing? Because that's what some of these
corporations will say, like, we didn't actually roll it.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
We didn't get rid of them.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
We just had to change the language because we didn't
want to be targeted by the federal government.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
We will know the true answer to that probably in
about five years when we see the results. But what
I can say that research has said, Harvard has studies
that say when you take away race conscious programming, that
the black race gets left behind. So we will see
the numbers and the effects on this very soon. But
while that has been true in the past, the pendulum
(09:41):
is going to have to swing only because the country
is becoming more black and brown. That's right. So at
some point, for people to survive and for companies to thrive,
they'll be forced to figure it out if they don't
want to choose to figure it out.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
What's the most difficult thing that you see for black
entrepreneurs and black businessmen at all?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
It's just simply that, the access to capital.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Is it capital or is it also the relationships?
Speaker 4 (10:05):
I think that's the biggest pain point. You're right when
you say relationships. So I tell people all the time,
a lot of times these stats exist. Even if you
take racism and sexism out of it, there's proximity.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
So just the networks in itself, you may not have
the access to those networks.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
But the biggest pain point is still the capital.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Because when you hear somebody talk about an IPO, and
I always wonder if those IPOs were offered to us first, right?
Or you hear real estate industry, or you hear somebody
investing into a company, when you hear these brands that
IPO and make all this money, I'm like, I wonder
if that was offered to us as well as to
those other companies.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
I'll say this, though, and I feel very strongly about this.
We have to solve this money problem because when you
come to the table with economic power, you're always in
a position to negotiate. The Jewish community can negotiate anything,
even if they're two to three percent of the population
because of their economic power. So when you say, is
it relationships? But see, that money will start unlocking some
(11:06):
relationships that didn't exist. So that's why I said if
we can get the money right first, it opens up
so many other opportunities. You can come to the table
and negotiate your voting rights. You can negotiate your health
care rights. Anything you want to negotiate, you're in position to.
But we can't keep as a community coming to the
table from an inferior position because that's what happens.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
You don't have as much to leverage.
Speaker 7 (11:29):
You know, what's crazy, too, about that is I'm seeing
a lot of. woman-owned businesses this year having to shut
down because they are getting to a point where they're
so successful, but they don't have the relationships to leverage
the success that they're having happen.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
They don't have anybody to call on.
Speaker 7 (11:42):
So they're literally shutting down their businesses and being like,
we'll be back when we figure it out. But it's like,
when do you figure it out if the resources just
aren't there and they're not checking for us?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You talking about black women? Yes.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Black women going to figure it out. I mean, I
don't like any of the attacks, but black women going.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
To figure it out. Do you follow the brand Hanifa?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
The clothing brand? I'm very familiar.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
And I know that it was due to the production,
meaning like she couldn't mass produce.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
So she was doing pre-orders.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
And then somewhere amongst that, she had to stop. And
she was like, I'll come back. She's going to figure
it out. I have full faith and full hope that
she is going to figure it out. It's just what
we do. And like I say, some things aren't by choice.
They're by force. By force, she's going to figure it out.
But that happens when you start off and she built
a quick demand and then couldn't meet the production needs.
And that happens sometimes in business.
Speaker 7 (12:28):
I guess it's like when do we get to a
point where before she got there, she had everything she
needed to help her figure out instead of having to
figure it out in a frenzy.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Oh, I agree with that. I mean, that's why we
do what we do day to day.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
That's why we distribute capital. That's why we do the
work we do. That's why we offer the resources that
we offer. And I think she probably screamed for help
a little earlier. she probably would have been okay. But
people have pride and whatnot. And I don't know her
story personally. I don't know this woman personally. But I'm like,
oh gosh, you let us know on the back end
that it's.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
About to be over.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
You said something just now that I feel like, you know,
it's something that hinders us too. The pride, right? Like
not being able just to reach out and ask for assistance.
Everybody wants to have this, let me do it on
my own.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Let me figure it out myself. I'm self-made.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Like, no, you got to connect with people. To me,
that's how you grow.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
It is how you grow. I even have a chapter
in a book called, like, The New Leader Is You.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
And I use the women of the civil rights movement,
the Rosa Parks, the Coretta Scott Kings, Juanita Abernathy, Dr.
Betty Shabazz, all of them just to even showcase. These
were all everyday people in that era.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
These are not celebrities.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
These are not people with big profiles or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
You're talking about a seamstress.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
These are people who just knew to stand up for
what they believed and they have the ability to affect change.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
And it's done in community.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
So when you say that, community is key to our progression.
It just really is.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
Sometimes, so what you said, Sharla, like some people do
call on people for help, but sometimes... People like, I
don't really like the word gatekeep, but like everybody don't
help you. You can have an open mouth because they
say closed mouths don't get fed. Yeah, but people time
and time again will reach out for help and they
don't get it. So that may be a discouraging factor
as well.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Oh, I've lived it.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Exactly.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
Like I'm pretty sure that you have asked so many
people for help, leaned on other people and they just
give you their ass to cancel. They don't hit you
back or they tell you they're going to do something
for you and it never happens.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
It never comes. It's true.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
And that's why community is important, only because you're going
to have to sometimes exchange somebody else's faith. You're going
to have to let somebody encourage you. But that happens,
and that's real.
Speaker 7 (14:35):
How do you keep your resilience through the rejection and
through all the things that you've been through, though?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I would definitely first and foremost say my faith. Community,
I believe in it.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
People encourage you. I mean, there was a time I
wanted to give it all up during this case. I'm
talking about I had to paperwork everything, just shut it
all down.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I'm like, I don't want the headache. I don't want this.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
And everybody who was around me and the people who
could help me solve my problem, they said, not today.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
They were like, you're not doing that. Like, it's just
not going to happen.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
But had those people not said that, I probably would
have just checked out.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
I'm human.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
I love the title, too, Fearless Freedom, right?
Speaker 5 (15:17):
I'm a person that feels like fear isn't always bad.
because fear can stop you from making stupid decisions. So
what's the difference to you between fearlessness and recklessness?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
I think there is a fine line. I will say that.
I will say that.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Your fearlessness is not going to cause harm or consequence later,
but your recklessness will.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
Does fearlessness ever become a prison for you? Are there
moments when you want to be scared, but you feel
like you can't show it?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Mm-mm. Because everybody expects you to be filled?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
No.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
I don't buy into the narrative of got to be
strong all the time or any of that.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
No. Mm-mm.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
What's one financial mistake you see people make all the
time that you wish that you could be there to be.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Like, don't do that?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Oh, people live beyond their means too much.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
Like, literally, in Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
People be lying.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Not that. No, I'm just saying. Like at my house,
people would be like, oh, gosh, she lives in the community.
And I would just laugh. They're like, oh, she's a millionaire.
She lives in the community.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
What the hell is a community?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
The hood.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
So I'm like, oh, no.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
When I got my house years ago, it was like $ 324.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
When it was paid off, I was like, I'm good. Car,
eight years. I was like, I'm good.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
It was not like a thing that I was chasing
or anything. I've always liked nice things, had nice things.
But being an entrepreneur, if I can't cash out on
my debt in that moment, I'm not putting myself in
that situation.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I'm just not. I'm just not. You'll see it in
the book.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
I've seen too many ups and downs of life and
disruption in entrepreneurship, and no one's free from disruption. But
because I saw it very young and very early on,
I was like, whatever I put on a loan or
anything like that, I got to be able to cash
out immediately.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
So, yeah.
Speaker 6 (17:08):
You said economic freedom isn't just a problem for entrepreneurs
and wealthy people.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
It's a problem for everybody.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Why do you feel like that?
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Um.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Because of the systems that are in place and things
that have just taken place in history, economic freedom is
something that we all have to pursue. Because like I said,
when the biggest ethnic demographic is being suppressed and oppressed,
it does not serve the whole. So it's something that
everybody really needs to get a handle of because this
(17:37):
world is becoming more black and brown, not just this country.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
That's right. Your name, is your name now, like, what's
your name? Queen, what is it? Queen Wah, what is it?
Queen Wah of Dawa.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Granberry Bee. Granberry Bee. You're going to mess it all up.
Je suis la Renoir. That's what I said. I am
the Queen Wah of Dawa, Granberry Bee, and Cote d'Ivoire.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Oh, that's right.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
And y'all just launched Fearless Fun Africa, right?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
What are you seeing economically in Africa that black Americans
aren't paying enough attention to?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Oh, the opportunities.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
I mean, we hear about the risk in Africa, I think,
more than we hear about the opportunities. There's opportunities just
in the currency exchange. There's opportunities in the fixed deposits.
There's opportunities in their businesses. As entrepreneurs, we can set
up shop there because labor is just so much lower.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Now, I don't advise that of people who have.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Like a nine to five and they may be making
about like one hundred or eighty thousand dollars because you're
not going to get that same income.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Rate or salary over there.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
But if you are an entrepreneur, you can go over
there and do so much job creation and so much
wealth creation that's going to be so catalytic to see
a whole society rise. Like, I'm excited about Fearless Fund
Africa because while we've raised, you know, millions and millions
and millions in the States, to me, I feel like
I still can't even move the percentage. I still can't even,
I still can't even, like, get that 2% to move
(18:58):
for women or that 0.39% to move for women of color.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
But on.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Say a million bucks, I could probably service a thousand
companies there. And then I can see a whole community rise.
And I am excited about that.
Speaker 7 (19:13):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
You know, people always talk about reconnecting with Africa, right?
Like black Americans, y'all talk about reconnecting with Africa. Like
once you started actually doing business there, what did you
realize that we romanticized about Africa?
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Oh, I will say this because I live there. And
I live in Africa and visit in Africa. It's two
different things. Mind you, it's still a developing place and
it's still an emerging market. So, like, I do miss
my Amazon. I do, like, miss some of my conveniences.
So I would think that sometimes we just romanticize of
going home but not realizing what is this going home
(19:45):
environment going to look like for you?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
I loved Ghana. The nightlife in Ghana was amazing. I
went to Ghana.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I live in a cry. I live in airport. Oh, man.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
We had a ball. Silver Fox Script Club.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
She like, I did.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
I'm not acknowledging. Ball.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I went there. I don't remember half the places I
was at, but I was there.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
We had a ball.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
We had a great time.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Oh, no.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
The sun came up. First of all, Ghana's a vibe.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
It is.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Ghana's a vibe. I'm queen next door in Cote d'Ivoire,
but Ghana is a vibe.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
How far is that from, you said Cote d'Ivoire?
Speaker 4 (20:16):
They're next door. Like, literally, I take a 30-minute flight.
I just go back and forth. I became a queen
in 2022. And I talk about it in the book because-
I was thrown off.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah. I had no clue what was really going on.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
So what was going on? What is the requirement for
being a queen, what you just said?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Because you've been calling yourself a queen forever.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
The traditional rulers have to basically instill you. And the
government has signed off on it and everything in my situation.
So I don't have an honorary title. I'm a Royal Majesty,
first of my name. And this took place after I
had built a school there. And my chief of staff
called me and said, well, Arianne, when you get there,
you know, they're going to have a.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Stylist for you. I said, for what?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
I'm wearing T-shirts and a jeans. I'm cutting a ribbon.
And she was like, oh, you don't know.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
She said, they're crowning you queen.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
And I just took it as like a joke. I
was like, oh, okay, whatever. They'll probably give me some
plaque or something. How did I know I'd be on
the phone to this day every single week at these meetings, right?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
I was like, oh, this is real responsibility. But I
have a nephew who prophesied this when he was two.
So five years before, he kept telling me I was
about to be crowned an African queen. And every year
he would tell me.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
And then I said, do you love your mother? And
he said, of course I do. I said, why don't
you ever tell her that? And he paused and he said,
because she's not.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And I said, oh. I was like, okay, Carter, what's
going on here?
Speaker 4 (21:34):
So the day I got that call and realized they
said the mayor, the senators, the governors, everybody's hands on
deck for her coronation, I was like, Kelly, you know
what Carter's been saying?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
And he's in the background.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
He's like, I've been trying to tell you.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
He was seven at the time.
Speaker 7 (21:50):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
So you did it with jeans and a T-shirt on.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
No. They redressed me. Like you said, somebody was going
to be there.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
If these corporations continue to back away from DEI, Is
the answer to convince them to come back?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
I don't think the answer is to necessarily convince them.
They're going to be forced, like I said, even if
they don't choose it, just due to the demographics and
the way things are growing.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I don't know. Maybe I just don't like the posture
of begging.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
So maybe that's what it is. Maybe that's what it
is for me. So they're going to do it regardless.
The pendulum's going to swing.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, this administration is not going to be in forever.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
At some point, and even if they were, like I said,
we're going to be so overpopulated that you're going to
have to figure out how are you going to have customers?
How are you going to cater to this audience? You're
going to be forced to figure it out at some point.
It may be 10 years from now, but if you
don't choose it, you will be forced. So I don't
think it's a need to ask. Either you're going to
stand by what is a business case or not. I
(22:51):
asked actually Costco the other day, the staff there. I said,
what made y'all stand strong? They're investors in both our funds.
What made you stand strong through all this? And they said,
we don't even view it as standing strong.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
It's just good business.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
They said, the business case itself is enough for us
to pursue our business this way.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Period.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
I was like, okay.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
And I just feel like black people, that's why I
love what y'all do, because I just feel like black
people should be building enough capital that we don't need
corporate America's permission to do anything. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:18):
We've got to become self-sufficient. But like I said, in
addition to being self-sufficient, we got to be able to
defend it. Because the second that you build it, If
somebody comes to get you, you can't be vulnerable.
Speaker 7 (23:29):
How are you having conversations with people about the mind
state around money? We have these capitalist conversations and people
talk certain ways when you start making money, when you're
bringing money into your business, about you and your business.
How do you change that thinking so that we know
that we should be out here getting all this money
in and coming up in things and it's okay to
do that?
Speaker 4 (23:47):
When you asked that question, it made me realize or
reminded me of how often people People call it selling
out when you sell your company.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Lord have mercy.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
He said, Lord have mercy.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
And it's really you selling up. You ain't selling out.
You're just gaining more wealth.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
You can't sell out if you want to buy in.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
But I think over time, people are starting to get that.
I hope we've gotten out of that.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
I still think some of it is still there. I'm
not in disagreement with you. But I think that our
level of exposure, our reach, our Internet, everything now is
where we can see it. We can see it now.
I see when people set up a company, it's less
backlash as before. So it's getting less and less. But
it needs to eliminate.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Because right now, it's a blessing.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
But it goes back to the capital conversation.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
You start a business, you grow it, you scale it,
you sell it, you get the capital. And now you
got more capital to reinvest into your community. That's my mentality.
Speaker 7 (24:40):
Some people don't know, business owners don't know the difference
between having a good business and having a business that
is investable. Like you can invest in it. Because sometimes
it's different.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Well, good business should be investable.
Speaker 7 (24:50):
Yeah, but I think sometimes people think, I mean, maybe
it's like a personal thing. Like I've met people who
have a great business.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
They have customers. They're profiting.
Speaker 7 (24:57):
But when they go out to people for investments, people
are like poking holes across their business plan and their
business maps, and they don't want to invest in it
just yet. They're like, oh, come back, you know, next
year or Q4 or whatever when we see a bit
more of whatever it is that you're doing.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
That's just part of like we're saying the restrictions of
access to capital. That person that you're describing isn't doing
anything wrong. You know, the fact that somebody is not
willing to give them a loan or invest and whatnot,
that's not a signal that they're doing something wrong. You
can have a completely healthy business and still be running
up against that obstacle. Matter of fact, we've even invested
in somebody who's dealing with that now.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
She has a contract she.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
Recently got for 20 million ARR three years in a
row and looking for investors.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
So it happens to good businesses all the time. That's
not like a sign that somebody's not investable.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
This is my last question.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
If fearless freedom works exactly the way you want it to,
what does somebody stop being afraid of after they read it?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
It's a few things.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Yikes.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I would say people stop being afraid of having difficult
conversations because I go over what the spirit of fear
is costing us. And I said, if you really write
down what your fear is costing you, you'll realize it's
too expensive to operate that way.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
So that's one thing I can say.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
What I'm excited about this book doing in the earth,
I have a whole playbook in here. Though the court
case may be the backdrop, it shows you in the
book of how we can actually have an equitable society.
I have policy examples. I give a roadmap for government.
I give a roadmap for corporations. I give a roadmap
for VCs. Like that this is really something possible that
(26:40):
we can actually achieve.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
So I'm excited about that.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
And for everyday person, what I'm excited about is the
fact that everybody's dealing with pivots right now. Everybody's dealing
with failure right now. We have 600,000 black women not
even employed right now. This book gives you that kind
of encouragement that, okay, if I can pivot, I saw
this story this woman went through, I can keep going.
So I'm looking to see all of the catalytic inspiration
(27:05):
and empowerment that's going to come from it.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
All right, well, thank you for.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Joining us this morning.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (27:09):
Go get fearless freedom right now. A manifesto for unlocking
wealth and equality for all.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
That's right. It's Arian Simone. It's the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Come on in.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
Queen. Queen.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
You say it. Queen.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Okay. Of Dawa, Graham, Burby, and Cote d'Ivoire. What was that?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
In the Ivory Coast. Yes, Queen for short.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
It's the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Come on in. Hold up. Every day I wake up.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Wake your ass up. It's the Breakfast Club. Y'all finished
or y'all done?
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