Naked Sports with Cari ChampionBuilding A Billion Dollar Brand with Fawn Weaver
Weaver, the CEO and founder of Uncle Nearest Whiskey, shares her journey of uncovering the legacy of Nearest Green, the first known African American master distiller. She discusses the historical significance of the relationship between Nearest Green and Jack Daniel, the impact of Prohibition on the whiskey industry, and the importance of honoring African American contributions to distilling. Fawn also highlights her efforts to revive Nearest's legacy through her brand, which has become one of the most awarded bourbons in the world. We also gain insight into the journey of building the Uncle Nearest brand, highlighting the challenges faced in a predominantly white industry with centuries of business and multi-generations of operation. Weaver emphasizes the need for a broader definition of culture, the power of storytelling, and the mindset to overcome entrepreneurship challenges needed to build a legacy.
Connect: @CariChampion @FawnWeaver
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Our discussions will uncover the vital connections between these realms and the community we create. In each episode, we'll sit down with athletes, political analysts, and culture critics, because at the core of it all, how we see one issue shines the light on all others. Welcome to Naked Sports. I'm your Home Carry Champion. A few years ago I had the incredible opportunity to meet Fawn Weaver, the visionary behind Uncle Nearest Whiskey. She welcomed me to her distillery in Shelbyville, Tennessee, about forty five minutes south of Nashville. I was there to do a story on the whiskey that seemed to line the shelves at bars, restaurants, and more importantly, every house party I attended. This distillery is nestled on four hundred and thirty five acres of stunning land, and while words can't fully capture its beauty, let me just say it's a place that you all must see for yourself. It's open to the public, so if you are ever in the area and make sure you stop by. Well. Today we are unpacking who is the woman behind Uncle Nearest Whiskey, what's the origin story of this iconic brand. And as a special treat for our listeners, Bonn has given away some gems. That's right, free jewelry folks, for life and for business. So stay tuned because today's podcast is not just about whiskey. It's about legacy, empowerment and the ability to think differently in a world that follows norms and trends. Welcome to Naked Sports.
I am Fawn Weaver, CEO and founder of Uncle NAR's Premium Whiskey and New York Times best best selling author of Love and Whiskey. Uncle Nearest is the first known African American master distiller. And how I learned about it is it was on the cover of the New York Times International edition. I was in sync for just for a few days, and on the cover of it. It's actually on the cover of my book, Love and Whiskey is it's this photo of Jack Daniel and to his immediate right as an African American man. Now I didn't drink Jack then, I don't drink it now, but I knew what he looked like. His company has done a brilliant job at making his face ubiquitous around the world. And so the moment I saw him, and then I see this African America and next to them, and I place it. I guessed that the image was taken sometime in the nineteenth century, which would make it pretty astounding that Jack, in the only known photo that he ever took, would have had an African American man to his right. The headline on that New York Times story was Jack Daniels embraces a hidden ingredient help from a slave. So somehow, with that photo and that headline, the Internet went wild and decided Jack Daniel was a slave owner, he stole the recipe, he hid the slave. That's the story that went all over the world. And I'm looking at this and just as a person who loves history and especially African American history, I'm looking at this and going, Yo, if Jack Daniel wanted to hide this man, he wouldn't taken hure yet, right. And so the question that The New York Times was really bringing forth was they weren't giving the answer as much as they were asking a question. And the reason why they were doing that is because the story had been reported for quite some time and it was a part of Jack Daniel's actual history that there was a white preacher and distiller by the name of Dan Cole who was the teacher and mentor of Jack Daniel. But the town of Lynchberg was saying it wasn't actually Dan Cole, it was an enslaved man on his property. And so what The New York Times was doing was essentially putting up a lob to see if there was a way for someone to prove this Clay rise. And the journalist he described it as a lob because he said Listen didn't have all of the resources that it would take in order to really dive into this story to prove it. And so I lobbed it up and hoped that someone else would do it, and sure enough, I was the one who went ahead and took the ball and finished the play. But when you look at that story, when the entire world was looking at and saying, you know, Jack Daniel stole it, and it's another one of these instances where African Americans had been stolen from I'm looking at it. I ordered Jack Daniel's legacy. His biography nears green, and his boys are mentioned more times than Jack's own family. And to understand the significance of that is to know the reporter. The journalist who wrote the biography was essentially hired by Jack's family to write this biography, even though he had autonomy as to what got included and they were not to influence it. They wanted a story of Jack's life to be told, and so this journalist came from Alabama to Lynchburg, Tennessee, interviewed all the people who knew Jack best, all the people who knew his nephew who took over the distillery before Jack died, and his great nephews who were overseeing the distillery at that time, the number of times they would have had to mention Nearest and his boys for them to be listed in this book many times. And then you take that and you couple with the photo. I pretty quickly concluded that not only was Jack not trying to hide who it was that was his teacher, he was trying to make sure America would not be able to wipe him out.
Amazing. I'm really curious when you did the research. And yes, everyone thought because there is the story of a rasure of African Americans being a rased in history, and it's true, it's not wrong. It's actually very true. You found something totally different just with the research. He wasn't trying to erase him. In fact, he was. It sounds to me, and you tell me if I'm incorrect, it sounds to me that he was honoring a man who really was was a huge contribution to what he was able to create, but only what he could do during that time.
It's absolutely accurate, and I believe that Jack and then his descendants continued this to make sure that no one would ever be able to erase Nearest Green and George Green and Eli Green from their story. So when you look at what ended up happening is Jack passed away in nineteen eleven. However, he turned over his distillery in nineteen oh seven to his nephew Limb, and lim continued to tell the story of Nears Green and his boys. He went on record every single time it was asked what is the difference between Tennessee whiskey and Kentucky bourbon. There's only one thing that distinguishes that other than location, and that's just taking this traditional bourbon distillate, running it through sugar maple charcoal to filter it before it goes into the barrels. Well, Jack's descendants were always very clear and giving the credit for that process to the Africans that were living there, to the enslaved people. That's also something they didn't have to do because we have. What has happened historically over our four hundred plus years in this country is because we weren't able to patent, because we weren't able to trademark. We're really just now figuring out the things that we invented correct and we're just now figuring out where we were involved in, who we helped with and So what's interesting is that when Jack's great nephews took over the distillery, there was four of them. They made sure that when they opened up the distillery for tours for the public, Nears Green's legacy, George Green's legacy was always a part of those tours, so much so that Nearest says, descendants that went away to college would bring their college friends back take them on tours of Jack Daniel so that they could talk about their ancestor. It was never hidden. Then, in seventy eight, the last of Jack's descendants to pass away, Regor Motlow. When he died, It's almost like the story died with him, because between seventy eight and seventy nine, the story disappeared. So one of his descendants came back with friends from college and called her daughter and said, they whitewashed my great great grandfather out of this story. And so we know the exact timeframe that had happened, And it happened right after Jack's descendants stopped having watch over the distillery, Okay, And so I believe that Jack knew without them overseeing this, that there was a really good chance that Naris's legacy would be erased and he wasn't wrong, because if he hadn't taken the photo the photo, we wouldn't have been able to prove it.
Do me a favor, do me a favorite. Let's talk about this photo, because I feel like people might and I just want to focus in on this photograph, that photograph that you saw in the International section of the New York Times that day in Singapore. What what year was that?
That was twenty.
Sixteen, What was the year the photo was taken?
That nineteen oh four?
Nineteen oh four. The conditions of America in nineteen you know, for would not suggest that a white man who is as profitable and or as lucrative or well established as Jack Daniels would take a photo with Uncle Nerest correct.
Well, more importantly so that the African American in the photo we've been able to positively identify as Nearest's son, George Green. Okay, because Nearest retired and his sons George and Eli, continued to work alongside Jack.
So George Green, it wasn't Nearest city.
It wasn't nearest. Neares was passed away by the time that photo was taken. But the thing that I found I still find most significant about the photo. It's not just that George Green is to the right of Jack Daniel. It's that if you look at the full photo, and it's why I began Love and Whiskey with that photo so people could see not the crop version that was in the New York Times or even the crop version I have on the cover. When you look at the full photo, what you will notice is is the center of the entire photo is around the African American man. So Jack didn't just have him to his right. He actually seeded the center position of the entire photograph to George Green. And the other reason that's important is is Jack never took another photo with other people his entire life. There is exactly one photo with Jack Daniel with other people in it, and he seeded the center position to an African American man.
That is powerful. Do you know, Can you tell me what happened to near screen? How did he pass away?
We have no idea. So that the US Census is so interesting and the reason why the archives exist now why it was created. So in eighteen ninety a portion of the census in America was burned in a fire. It was just an accidental fire, you know, buildings would burn all the time. Then someone in our government made the decision that if one portion of the census was burned and destroyed, that all of the census should be burned and destroyed. So we don't have an eighteen ninety census. So we know that he was alive in eighteen eighty. We know he was no longer alive in the census in nineteen hundred, but we have no way of knowing if he was still alive in eighteen ninety. And as I began doing my research, I have him paying pull taxes, which is, you know, the poll tax thing every time black people don't vote. I'm like, are you kidding me? They the poll tax is two dollars at that time that nearest green and I have him paying poll taxes every year that he was free up until eighteen eighty four, And so it is possible he passed away in eighteen eighty four. It's also possible that he no longer had to pay the taxes because of how old you would have been. We don't have any way of knowing, but eighteen eighty four is the last time we have a record of him. So that's why the brand Uncle Near's eighteen eighty four. We look at that and say that's the last year that we believe that he put whiskey into a barrel for Jack. And we say that because that's the year Jack moved to the current location for Jack Daniel Distillery. Nears Green is the only known master distiller for Jack Daniel Distillery number seven. But that was a different property than where it is now, Okay, And so when he moved, that would have been the last time that Nerros put whiskey in the barrel for Jack would have been at eighteen eighty four. And that's also the last year that I show records that he paid. The poll tax.
Pull tax is when you want to vote, you have to pay a tax. That was also a deterrent for many African Americans who were free an attacks.
Well absolutely, because white people didn't have to pay the poll tax. Yeah, we had to pay the poll tax in two dollars at that time. That meant you made a decision between putting food on the table for an entire week. That was a decision you had to make. And it was so amazing to me because every black person, every single black person in Lynchburg, Tennessee, paid that poll tax and they voted. All of Mirris's boys, every single one paid that poll tax and voted. Of course, women, his daughters weren't allowed to vote. That's the whole other conversation. But the boys all paid the poll taxes and made sure they voted.
When we return, we'll talk about how Fond revived the legacy of Nearest Green and made Uncle Nears a billion dollar brand back in a moment, welcome back to naked sports. As far as records go, some historians estimate that Nearest Green passed away in eighteen ninety. Also, Wikipedia says that but when he passed away, his son, George took over the business.
Yep, So his son continued the businessm Master Distiller. We don't have. It's interesting because Jack Daniels has no record, so so much of what I've had to discover is outside of their record. And a part of that is because a lot of people don't understand prohibition. It essentially killed Jack Daniel Distillery. So prohibition began in Tennessee ten years before federal prohibition. So Jack Daniel Distillery as we know it that was here, moved to Saint Louis. They moved to Saint Louis they start up operated his nephew Limbs set up operation there that entire building burned down. Who had to build a new Jack Daniel distillery across the way in Saint Louis. And so the fact that there's Guinea records, the fact that this photo exists is because it was about a forty year window of time that Jack Daniel Distillery did not exist in Lynchburg.
Prohibition please explain Master Distillery please?
Yeah, absolutely so. Prohibition was an experiment in America that failed greatly. You you had the government trying to regulate people drinking alcohol, and they had determined that the only way that you could drink bourbon because we didn't have all the alcohols at that time, it was basically like it was basically whiskey, bourbon rye whisky in the East Coast. And they determined that the only way that you should be able to get bourbon is what a prescription. And so the only Burke people that were still making bourbon were the ones that were doing it for the pharmacies. And I'm like, let me get this straight. So you knew what was healthy enough to make it a prescription? Yeah, But and so what ended up happening during prohibition is alcohol didn't go away, just went in to speak easies. The mob ran all the alcohol, so they made all the money and then they paid off the government officials to keep prohibition going.
In a movie with al Capone or anything about ulture, so you know what prohibition was. And also the advent of moonshine, people were making their own.
Well absolutely a lot of people don't even know that's how NASCAR began. So when you talk about sporting events, most people have no idea that NASCAR began in Tennessee. And the reason it was created was to outrun the revenuers that were chasing after the moonshiners. So the moonshiners created these soaked up vehicles that would outrun the police and the revenuers and they would basically had these back routes through the smoky mountains into North Carolina. So they would run moonshine between Tennessee and North Carolina with these really fast cars. That's what became NASCAR.
Wow, I had no idea. A lot of people including me, thank you, I know, thank you for this education. Okay, yeah, yeah, wow, that's so powerful, Master Distiller. So and the only reason why I ask is because these questions are people will want to know about Uncle Nears So the next time they buy Uncle Near's eighteen eighty four, they know why it's eighteen eighty four.
Absolutely and a master distiller. To answer your question, what that essentially means is that person was over the stillhouse. It was they were over the entire production of whiskey making at that particular distillery. And so nears Green we knew to be the master distiller because Jack's Jack and his nephew and his great nephews all made sure that was documented that nears Green was the first master distiller. However, between that time frame and when Jackie Summers started Surrell in Brooklyn, New York and became a master distiller, I believe in twenty twelve, Between that time, we don't know of a single other African American master distiller, wow or Black master distiller because Jackie is Caribbean, so we don't know of a saint year to what year. From eighteen eighty four until twenty twelve, we don't have record of another master distiller, not because they didn't exist, but because they weren't given credit.
So what do you think the relationship was from your research which you've been able to ascertain what you've been able to discover, what was the relationship between Jack Daniels and your screen I.
Still confident that I know what it was because I've interviewed about one hundred of Nears' descendants. I've spent time with them. I've gone and pulled documents from six different states, all the states where he has branches, but also Jack's family. And when you look at the descendants and how their descendants were so close and continued throughout the years, it's very clear that began somewhere, and it makes the most sense that it predated his son and Jack's nephews and those relationships that it began with Ners and Jack. And so you have just to give a little bit of background. Nears and Jack worked for the same man. They worked for the same preacher on the same property. I own that property now, so I have an intimate understanding and knowledge of it. It was it's three hundred and thirty eight acres. It's now three thirteen because they've put roads through and all that stuff, But it's that three hundred and thirty eight acre property. You had this preacher in this distiller who had his home. He married a teetotaler at a very young age. She was only eighteen years old, So you have that home on the property. They had, what's really amazing, they had eighteen kids. I think eleven survived, but that woman was always pregnant. So you have good lord, and so you have their home. And then if you were to walk through what was essentially forest area, if you were to walk through the property for about twenty five thirty minutes, you would arrive at where his distillery was on the property. But then if you went about the same amount of time in the other direction, it's been like a triangle, you would arrive at his church. And so you had a man who was keeping these three worlds essentially separate from one another. His wife didn't want to have any parts of the distillery whatsoever, the church didn't I And so you have this distillery that's being run by an African American man because the white man who actually owns it can't put his hands on it because of his wife and because of his church.
Interesting, and so I think.
That's a part of where the dynamic was different, is he was essentially an absentee owner, right because his church and his wife didn't want him to have any parts of that distillery, so he just kind of pretended like it wasn't there. But then nearest Green was making the whiskey. Well, Jack Daniel comes as a young kid, about seven years old, as a chore boy. He's the tenth child. His mother dies of typhus fever seven days after she contracts it, and he was only four months old. So imagine, in those days, men didn't know how to take care of kids. This man is left now with ten kids, one that needs to be wet nurse breastfed by nextdoor neighbor who has an infant around the same age. And so you have this man who now has two ten children, including a four month old. Well, back in those days, the way that you dealt with that, it wasn't babysitters and nannies. You went and found somebody else to marry who would take care of you'll take kids, correct. And so Jack's father brought in a woman pretty early on, and by all accounts, she just wasn't fond of Jack. And so Jack left home at a very early age and began working as a chore boy for this preacher and distiller Dan Call and So when we look at Jack, because of who he became, we automatically assumed that he came from privilege. But as I began diving into, what I discovered is he's seven years old. He's living and working for this family. He's going and fetching water from them for the well. He's feeding slot to the pigs, he's milking cows. He's living in the barn a good portion of the time because they had so many kids, so many babies, that it was more peaceful to sleep in the barn with the animals. It's hard for a person of any color to believe that they are of any privilege if that's your situation, if that's your circumstance. So I don't believe that Nearest and Jack ever really saw each other based on race. I certainly don't think Jack did, and I don't believe it because he had such a tough upbringing that there would be no way for him to feel as though he was above anybody.
Else because of where he was in life, his station in life.
His station in life did not allow him to have any kind of privilege.
So you believe that they were, what would you how would you categorize that relationship mentor, mentee, teacher, student teacher, being nearest, teacher, being nearest, mentor being nearest and over the years, based on the relationship with Jack and nearest his son George. And it was interesting because George Green his granddaughter.
He raised her. She lived with him until he passed away. And one of the stories that she shared that's in Love and Whiskey, is Jack's nephew, Lim, who ran the distillery. He would get drunk and this isn't you know everybody in town knows this. Lim would get drunk, he'd get a little bulligern and Miss Helen, George's granddaughter, she would remember the phone ringing and someone saying, George, can you please come talk to Lim. Lim didn't respect a single person when he was drunk, except near his son. So George would have to go down to the house and go Lim, you know you can't talk to people like that. Lim, you know you can't throw stuff like that. The level of respect you have to have gained for the only person to be able to talk down the wealthiest man in town is a black man.
Yeah. Yeah, because he knew he respected him as what he came from and what the work ethic in which obviously they displayed and how talented they were were and did hear you? Decades later, hundreds of years later, you come along and you find this story and for whatever reasons, you're intrigued, and I know the reasons, you just get this black man is centered. Tell me more about this story.
Listen, I was about to turn forty. You couldn't tell me a single story up until that point where we would we could prove that we were there at the beginning of a ubiquitous American brand. None, you couldn't tell me a story where we were there at the beginning of something that had been invented, where where it was proven, not that it's said. So you go to Houston, Texas. You have lu Sille's restaurant. Her descendants have been very clear in saying Pillsbury stole our recipe of instant biscuits for her. They kept trying to buy it from her, she kept saying no, they reverse engineered it, and all of a sudden they have it. However, they can't prove it. Yeah, right, So what we've had over the years is a history of stories that we can't prove. And with this photo and with the accompanying documentation his biography, Jack's biography, and a few other things. I'm looking at this and going, wait, we could we actually have a story we can.
Prove h And that was new for us and your idea when you knew that you could prove this story, its origin, it's history in African American culture. Your idea was to do what then?
A book in a movie. So Love and Whiskey was the first chapters of Love and Whiskey I wrote back in twenty and sixteen. Now, mind you, my editor, co writer, all the rest of that I did. So she brought in her own researchers. They went back and reinterviewed every person who I interviewed that was still alive. And so the structure of it is not what I originally wrote. But the content is in that I originally wrote back in October twenty sixteen. It is throughout the book. It's basis, the formation of the book itself. And so it was always meant to be a book. But as I began meeting with Nearess's family and Jack's family, what became clear is that Nearess's story had been erased once before, and there was a book, and there was newspaper articles and magazines that made it clear who he was. So the fact that it could happen once means it could happen again, and a book wasn't going to prevent it from happening. And so the question became, why are we all still talking about Jack Daniel and Johnny Walker and Jim Bean to this day? Very simple, we see their bottles everywhere, yep. So to cement the legacy of Nearest Green, that was imperative that we made sure that not only did he have his own bottle to sit alongside Jim, Johnny and Jack, but it was important that it become very early on the most awarded bourbon in the world, because we were saying the level of excellence in which Nearest operated, we're going to mirror that all these years later. I mean, this is the sixth year in a row that Uncle Ners is the most awarded bourbon in the world. That's not by accident, that's very intentional. I should also clarify why we refer to him as Uncle Nears for the brand, but I don't refer to him as Uncle Nears as a person, as a person. I refer to him as Nearest Green. That's what he referred to himself as, but his legal name was Nathan Green. And enslaved people on the other side of being freed, many of them chose to abandon the names that were given to them because so many of them those names were tied to either their slave owners or children of the slave owners. And so what you see a lot with enslaved people is after the Civil War, they no longer use those names anymore. That was the case with Neares Green. He completely abandoned using Nathan Green. But more importantly, every legal document from his children and his grandchildren never said Nathan. Every single one was Nearest, felled phonetically, so many different ways, but every single one of them used Nearest, And so I had to begin looking at it to figure out, well, why would he possibly have abandoned Nathan. And there's two reasons. One, the largest land, the largest slave owner in the Lynchburg area was named Nathan Green. That's one reason. The other reason is the most successful, well known Confederate general in this area is a man by the name of Nathan Bedford Forest. And by in this area, I mean he literally came through here recruiting men for Forrest escorts. Well, he also just happens to be the first Grand Wizard of the kou Klux Plan. So in this area, the name Nathan is not great Nathan, it's not awesome. And so when we were creating the brand, we had a pretty big challenge because we couldn't name it Nearest Green because before we identified him as Neares Green and made him a household name, if you or I had seen Nearest Green on a whiskey label, it basically is like the nearest golf the closest golf course. It's not a human, it's a thing. Nearest Green, correct, It's a thing. And so we couldn't use Nearest Green until such time as we identified him as a human being. And so we really only had one choice of what name to use, and it was a name that everybody in Lynchberg, white and black, referred to him as, which is Uncle Nearest. And we struggled with that one because historically, when you would call someone an aunt or an uncle and their African American, it was really to distinguish good Negro house Negro. That type of thing is aunt and uncle. In Lynchburg. In that instance, the most well respected people that were there were Uncle Nearest Uncle Jack and Uncle Felix. Two of the three were white. Okay, So it wasn't a matter of good negro. It was a matter It was a term of endearment. It was more importantly a term of respect. And so even though we knew we would have to explain that, we decided we would go with Uncle Nears. But if you look at the name of the distillery we announced it in twenty eighteen, before we started building it. All the rest of that that was always named Nears Green Distillery. It has never been named Uncle Neris because we were confident that at some point we would make Nearest Green's name known around the world where when people see it on a bottle, they know who it is. So about a month and a half ago we released nears Green, Tennessee and whiskey. Because now when people see that name on a bottle, they know it's all.
Now, that's right. You've built the name. You've built the Uncle Nearest name in a way in which people are very familiar and it is a part of our world in which we live. Congratulations to you on that business model. So smart, but so divine, but almost just it was appointed. It was God knew that you needed. It happened in every It feels to me very divine. If today, in this moment, God says, look at this article while you're in Singapore, have this vision. You want a book, you want a movie, but then there's just so much more to it. If everyone listening, I had that wonderful opportunity to visit and it is a beautiful property that you have, a beautiful You've created such a beautiful living legacy to Nearest Green, and it is for the world to see. But you've also done not even on the business aspect, because we're going to get into that, because that's phenomenal, but you, to me, did the unnecessary step that most people forget to do, and you brought in his descendants and you said, I want you also to be a part of this. Now, that to me is another divine appointment and why I believe there is so much success because of the intention behind the product. Can you talk to us about how you were able to find some of Green's descendants and incorporate a relationship, a work relationship, a mentorship if you will, to make sure that they can understand who he is and also benefit from it in many ways, and perhaps come back and work for their uncle in there.
Yeah. Yeah, So before we ever sold a bottle of Uncle Nears, before any were in the marketplace, we had already begun paying for the college for college scholarships for every single one of Nearest Green's descendants. We were paying for all of them to go to college. And so Nearest Green's great great granddaughter, our Master Blinder, Victoria Adye Butler, who was phenomenal. I met her attending the graduation of her niece, who we had just put through college at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, and she was graduating with honors. She invited us out, we came out. That's how Victoria and I met. And so the interesting thing is my dream was always to have the company full of Green descendants. But I didn't think through this very well, because if I had, I wouldn't have paid for them all to go to college. Because now they're looking at me like, let me get this straight. So I now I have my JD, I have my masters, I have my and you want us to come work in Shelbyville, Tennessee, into New York and California and Texas. And I've had zero luck, zero, So this is really just Victoria and I and the rest of the Green family members. They come, they support, they bring their friends to the distillery, but they are like, yo, were not come. We're not coming to the middle of Shelbyville, Tennessee. When we have so many choices, yeah, to do whatever we want. However, that being said, I have not given up hope that over most time years that we're going to have so many Green family members working at the distillery and a part of the family business. I look at this as them out there sewing their royal oaths.
Right.
You know, you got one working at a PR firm, and and diego, you got one down A few of them actually down in Texas, and it's just really special to be connected. The head of security for the leadership at Meta is actually one of Nearest's descendants.
Von Weaver has written a New York Times bestselling book, Love and Whiskey, and she continues this great legacy of near a screen. But when we come back, she will explain how playing offense has kept her head and shoulders above the rest in this liquor game. But more importantly, she's given out those gems back in a moment. How do you create this business model that is now a billion dollar valuation. Congratulations to you and all your hard work, and your husband and your family members and your employees and your investors and everyone who believes in the vision. Congratulations to you. You deserve to be celebrated. So when I see you celebrated, it warms my heart because you deserve that. So thank you for showing us it can be done. But then now tell us how it was done.
You know, it's so hard to condense because we did so much so fast. So I think the easiest way to say it is is that most of the time when people start a business and they go out, they're focused on their marketing, their sales, their pr They're playing offense, right, It's about telling the story of their brand. It's about getting it out there to the public. In our instance, because our story was smack dab in the middle of Jack Daniels, which is now owned by another company, we didn't have any way of knowing if whether or not they were going to point every rocket, every grenade, and so we came into the business playing both offense and defense, and a part of our defense strategy was a little Tasmanian like, meaning we were going to do so many things simultaneously that if they threw a grenade over here, it's cool. We already moved to over here. If they pointed their rockets to us over there, it's all right, we already moved over here. And so we went peddled to the metal in a way that no one has ever come into this industry of any race, of any gender, No one has ever come into this industry as hard as we did. But we did it out of survival. We did it out of a necessity to both defend and to play offense at the same time.
I love it. And so when you say play offense, what did that look like just giving them these Yeah?
No, that part of it playing offense is getting out there and talking about the brand, being in the press every single day, going out and pitching the distributors. And because every single market you can't sell to a consumer if you're in the alcohol business, you have to pick sell to a distributor. That means the distributor is actually your buyer. They're the ones who you have to convince. And so every day my chief brand officer, Kate, we had one other team member, Steven and I. We would be on planes every day going and pitching distributors across this country, and so there was no outside of the sabbath. This has been I have worked six days a week easily sixteen eighteen hours adays since the beginning, and we look back on it and realize if we hadn't did that, if we hadn't done that, we would be dead. Not because Jack Daniel's parent company would have killed us, but because this business has a ninety nine point nine to nine percent failure rate that I mean, they didn't have to do anything but sit back and do nothing. In the likelihood that we would have failed was really, really high, and so for us, we had to do so much to represent, to build this brand, and to build it with a coalition of everyone. People looking at this would think, okay, well it was an African American story. It was built by an African American woman, so surely the consumers African Americans. But that's absolutely not true. In twenty sixteen, we weren't drinking bourbon. Yeah, like you could, you know, you could count on a few hands the number of.
People, and so everybody was drinking Jack though, yeah yeah, yeah.
I mean but actually, but when you looked at even Jack stats. African Americans didn't even represent a full percentage.
Oh really, why it was just the marketing of it. Then, just the.
Marketing of it, Jack damn African Americans black people as the Black Americans did not represent a full percentage. Wow that it was just and so a lot of people don't understand how difficult it was to build this brand because we didn't have us as a base.
Wow wow wow wow wow wow.
So we have to build it to everybody who already were bourbon consumers?
Were the black folks drinking fun.
Not that you have crowd and kognyak.
I was gonna say, where a purple bag at? Because the dominoes. We put the dominoes in the purple bag. This is what you know.
You don't know why.
It's just in the house.
It's so the crown, it's so funny. Because Nerost's descendants were all drinking crown. I was like, I had never had crown. And so I said one day because one of his eldest descendant in Saint Louis, she would hide the crown when I came over because he felt guilty. I meant, Antie, just let me taste the crown since I know you hit it. She had it under the sink. I was like, you don't have to hide it. When I come around, I tasted it was terrible. I was like, no, wonder, we have a hard time drinking bourbon. We've been drinking trash for so long, so we don't know what quality tastes like. And so we really had to train the palettes of a lot of women and people of color to really be able to enjoy the quality of a pure bourbon.
Do you tell me, I'm just gonna mirror back what I think I hear and what I've noticed. What a lot of successful brands, even with individuals you made it. Your story was so very niche not your audience, but the story of Nearest Green was so very particular, and it was the story of this this master de sailer who created a hand in hand taught Jack Daniels in many ways, right, would you? Is that fair?
It absolutely is, I would say the way when we began this, we were always very clear in saying we weren't just building a bourbon brand, a whiskey brand. We were building the next great American brand. Hard stop. Yeah, we believe that we were creating the great the next great American brand that would be embraced by every American because it's in every brands and it's American story. You have an African American and a white man walking working side by side. You have the process that is being utilized that makes it special as being credit with having come in with the enslaved people, having been perfected by Nearest Green and the folks that are there. And so you're looking at this and saying, what story is more American than this?
But fine? In a very polarized world. The reason what I say about you just in casual, I'm like, she has been able to create a brand, and most people will think black woman, black brand. But there is the way in which you tell the story, how you carry yourself, the way you move, the way you conduct business. It is something for everyone. But it's also the brand. You talk about a relationship, Jack and Nearest our friends. They are mental as you said, mentor mentee, that is something everybody can get behind because there is the unification in the world where we are so polarized, especially in a time when during that time that we're all the same. You know what I mean, I think.
Okay, And when you look at so white people are still about sixty percent of this country. African Americans Black Americans thirteen point nine percent. Right, So the two of us combined are about seventy five percent of the population of this country. And I'm telling a story that is uniquely credited with those two people, with those two groups. So this story even before it reaches Latinos and Asians and Native Americans and all the rest of this well, it's still seventy five percent of this country that it already covers.
But I think also it's a story of a white man embracing a black man in a time when that was not considered appropriate and or legal and or kosher, whatever word you want to use. And when you see that, that to me is hopeful. It's a hopeful story.
It's a hopeful story. We're looking at someone who was potentially the first known ally for us, and not just an ally of nearest and of his son George and his son Eli, but you're talking about a man who built a companympany in the nineteenth century in which he paid people on tenure, not race. That was unheard of, and so there were I was really fortunate that when I arrived in Lynchburg Tennessee. Nears's granddaughter was one hundred and six. She was still alive. But you also had all these African American men who had spent their entire careers working at Jack Daniel Distillery. And when I tell you, you're talking about men who were working there in the forties, in the fifties and the sixties, and every memory they had was found. How was that even possible? And they would talk about how if they were doing a particular job and they were paid a certain wage and a white person came in after them to do that same job, they were paid more than the white person. That is unheard of in that day and age. And that continued throughout the legacy of this distillery, of Jack's des Sendens continue, they continue to be allies.
It would be nice to find more of those allies. It would be nice to tell more of those stories. It would be nice to have those allies at the forefront. And in today's America I'm talking is in twenty twenty four, telling those stories, finding them, highlighting them, celebrating the people that they mentor and mentee with, work with teacher, student, whatever that relationship is, We could use so much of that. Do you ultimately know, because there's so much more than just for you. I already know that you haven't shared that with me, But there's so much more than just the whiskey I know that you bought. You guys are working on a Cognak for my understand.
Absolutely, we're the largest Cognac vineyard, the largest vineyard owner of Grand Champagne grapes, which is the Kreme dela Crome of Cognac grapes in the city of Cognac, France. It is absolutely the first time an African American has bought vineyards there. But I also believe it maybe the first time an American hass period because the process there. You can't just go into Cognac and buys It doesn't work that way. If you buy a property and it has only if you try to buy a property, and this could be a you know, a twenty million dollar property, if it has even a half of an acre of vineyards, the city controls it. The city controls the purchase process. So you could go in, you could you could actually place an offer, you could have that offer received and go into escrow, which by the way, happened with us. You get into escrow, it gets printed publicly in the newspapers for people to bid against you, and there is a single person who oversees the process that makes the determination of who in that bidding process gets to buy those vineyards.
Wow, it's no joke and so and understandably so because they want to keep it. Krem day la krem if you will. I'm assuming or well generational.
So the difference between Cognac and other spirits is that in Cognac, the majority of is not made by the house. As we know, Hennessy only makes about two percent of their own product. You have all of these generational farmers and distillers, small family businesses that have been doing this for twenty generations, for all the big guys for Remy, for Martel, for Crevasier, and for Hennessy. So when they're looking at it, they are looking at it and saying, who is going to take care of these vineyards the best and who is going to protect this for generations to come? So smart and my mindset is so focused on generations to come that they were comfortable and when you think about it, Americans in general, that's usually not how we think, which is why I think Americans have not been able to buy there before because we come in there and we're thinking about this generation, what we can build in this generation. And I came in and I shared the story, and I was focused on how I'm going to keep those farmers and those distillers working for the next twenty generations. My pitch was completely different, but my pitch was from the heart, and they approved it and we bought that property. So it's not named Uncle Ners, but Uncle Neares Inc. Does own now that French company and the name of the company not sharing it.
Get it? When do we get this year?
In a wait, you'll begin hearing about it toward the end of spring. Okay, here, all right.
I'm fine, I'm patient, I'm fine. I'm here. I'm here to support and talk about all the time. Yes, okay. So then I also, though believe on that there is still more beyond that.
Oh well, we already bought a vodka company that releases We completely have completed the rebranding of that that goes back into the market next year as well. So Uncle Near's Inc. Will go from being a single whiskey brand to being a portfolio company that owns a whiskey company, a bourbon company that owns a vodka company and that owns a cognac company. The only we'll be missing as tequila. And I'm not mad about that.
I'm not mad about that we got enough.
What do you feel, Sally?
I also feel not that it wouldn't matter, if it would be wonderful to embrace, but how do you feel? And I do know that there was some pushback when you talked about other brands or stars or celebrities aligning and creating their own, you know, their own version of a kognak and or a bourbon or tequila. What was your philosophy on that? You said you weren't necessarily worried about that space because it was a different brand philosophy.
I don't worry about anybody, so this thing so I So, if you've ever spent any time around Greg Popovich, I am the school of Greg Popovich. And players would always come to the Spurs and they, you know, come to and if they weren't a part of the Spurs poultry yet and they got traded in or whatever, and they look at these scouting reports and they're like, where's the scouting report? It's a page long. And Pop's philosophy was always if you do your job, you don't have to worry about what they do. You do your job with excellence, and so I don't care if it's a celebrity and not a celebrity have. I come from a school of thought where if we do our job, it doesn't matter who else is in the industry. So I have every celebrity that has come in, if they've reached into me and asked for advice, I've given it to them. The number of celebrities and they're people who have reached into me over the years, but they reach into me wanting to do some type of partnership, and every time it's a no for me. And the reason it's a no for me is my focus is Nearest. I don't want a single distraction and I want Nearest to be that star. Well, the moment a celebrity comes in, even if they're just an investor, and their name is attached. So if you look at it, Sincora right, Sincoro has always had five owners, the husband and wife couple that own the Boston Celtics, and the husband and wife owners that own another basketball team, and then you had Jordan right. Jordan has never run it. Jordan has never really been involved in it other than he's one of five. That's why it's called Sinkoro. There were always five equal partners. Who do we know from Cincoro? Jordan, right, And so it rises and falls on Jordan Lobos tequila that came out and the person who founded it. I believe this Diego his grandfather I think created Lobos in Mexico, and it's got this amazing story to it. None of us know that story. We know it's Lebron's to kill it. Here's the thing. Lebron drinks red wine all the time. Barn lies the problem, right, Yeah, Lebron wins a championship, he's going and he's drinking a bottle of red wine. If he wins a big game, he's drinking a bottle of red wine. And so the challenge with celebrities being connected to spirit brands is that if that is not what they are investing their time and energy into, not just posting a social media post every six weeks or eight weeks or whatever the agreement says, but they're really in there creatively helping to run the business. The very few spirit brands that have worked that had celebrity faces when you look at them, every single one of them put their own careers on hold and began working for that company. If you look at Ryan Reynolds, he did aviation and deadpoole, and he used deadpoole to sell aviation products and he used aviation to selll But you couldn't go around this country and not see Ryan Reynolds on the side of a billboard. But he was truly the chief creative officer those commercials, all that social media stuff Ryan was doing that you had. George Crony just went back to the red carpet in Venice, right, it was a whole big deal. It's his first time at the Venice Film Festival in the last decade, all this fanfare, Well, what happened the last decade? It was building gotta migos and so you take the rock with Tearamana. He was selling tequila before he had a brand, meaning he had been building it up on his social media. He was using tequila instead of milk for his corn flakes.
Like right, every one of his cheat mails, he'd always have Teamana right there. We'd sit there and watch always.
And so what most of the celebrities that are coming into the Spirit's industry don't understand is you actually have to be a part of the business. You can't just take a few photos and do some you know, social media posts and a commercial or billboard here or there. The Spirits consumer is not moved by that, not for any real period of time.
Was your intention, and obviously I mean initially because it changes, right, It's almost like a TV show what it starts out to be and ends up being something totally different. What was your intention to create a brand that would sit in the culture, and I'm talking about the black culture specifically, that would sit and represent something for the culture.
No, there's no way for that to be a plan. The culture wasn't drinking bourbon. So I created it it for me. I wanted to create the next great American brand, Hardstock, and you cannot look at America and not see the influence of the culture. It's impossible for something to be a great American brand and the culture not be a huge part of that.
And that isn't clear. When you say the culture, you mean the African American culture. Everything I mean what you mean culture. So it's really funny.
I was speaking at Jordan and Jordan Brands and they said, you know, we keep hearing about the culture of the culture. We know the culture assumes a lot. Can you define for me the culture. It was the first time I ever had the question asked, and the best way I could describe the culture. I can't say it's Black Americans are African American because I don't think there's anybody in this world that would not say that Jlo and Eminem are a part of the culture, very absolutely a part of the culture. I define the culture is everybody who is moved and influenced by hip hop and afrobeats, meaning they're on two and four. So this is the best way to explain this. When Barry Gordy, what made him so successful in Motown is he realized that the culture this is Black America and everybody we hang around. Everybody that hangs around us dances on two and four, claps on two and four, all of ours. You have friends on shore that are not black, but they have a similar rhythm to you because they've been around you a long time. Sure those people, Barry Gordy understood, they're all on two and four. Okay, now you've got American bandstand over here. They're all clapping and dancing all one in three. So what Barry Gordy figured out is if I can create music that hits one, two, three, and four, I bring black people and white people to the dance floor. But everybody that's on that two and four, that's our culture. It's all been influenced by us. It's all afrobeat. It started with our music. It's I think Sidney Poitier has the best line ever in Guest Who's Coming to Dinner, where the Tracy Spencer is trying to understand why black people have more rhythm than white people, and Sidney Poitier's response was, you do the watch to see. We are the watch two see. So every person who's a part of that I consider a part of the culture. I don't think we can limit the culture to just us as African Americans are Black Americans, because you go into any hip hop concert, any hip hop.
Concert, everybody's there. But you're saying the culture is to what I'm trying to understand is the answer. So you're saying we are the culture, but everyone is a part of the culture. We create the culture.
I am saying that African Americans, as a general rule those of us and not just African Americans, Black Americans. We have created the culture, but we are no longer the full entirety of the culture because you're influenced so many that they've come into it. So when we look at the culture now, we will look at all these people and absolutely say they are part of the culture that aren't necessarily African American. I'll look at DJ Khalt. You cannot pay me to believe DJ Khalid at a part of the culture.
Well, he's influenced by the culture. His music is influenced by the culture, and now he is a part of the culture.
J Kalid is a part of the culture. He's a part of what moves the culture. And he's not African American, he's not Black American, but he was so influenced by it that he's now part of it. So my whole my point here is is that the culture has expanded to include people that have been moved by.
Us, and you've created something that incorporates them as well.
Everybody, like literally everybody. You come to Nears Green Distillery on any given day, you go see everybody under the sun. But I'm gonna tell you, you will see a group of people on one side we have a bar. We have the world's longest bars at nears Green Distillery and onside. Saturdays on any given that Saturday, we'll have a DJ. The DJ will be playing Wobble. You will have one group of people on the dance floor wobbling. You will have another group of people, same song line dancing. They're being influenced by the culture. And so I don't look at those people and say they're part of the culture. Absolutely not, But they are now influenced by it. They do have a curiosity about it and they want to embrace it. And so for us, when I look at the culture, I want to make sure that the culture is not so exclusive that we actually make the culture go away, because over time we haven't included it. But if again, let's go back to our population thirteen point nine percent. Are we saying the culture is limited to thirteen point nine percent of the not absolutely not. So then the question who else is included in the CU culture? So the way I define it is the people that are onto a floor.
Yeah, that's that's why you define it.
People who are.
Onto enforcement, people are on I think that the through line, though, is not too far off. The through line is that we have. We are always a part of the culture. We create the culture, and we are inclusive of the culture. We are the wat to see, we are the what we are the wa to We.
Are the way to sea, so Lo where it all begins. Yes, so it all even though we now have so many people that we have influenced from. And that's not just in America, that's around the world. You go everywhere. You have reinfluenced the Backstreet Boys and n C who then country.
All that rock and roll, you go down the lit absolutely, but.
When you think of some of the biggest music now is K pop. K pop directly influenced by Backstreet Boys, in sync, that whole boy band thing, and those boy bands were directly influenced by the culture.
Yes, correct, I absolutely agree with that. Okay, sorry, Before I let you go, I want to talk about the book because I know that you just said. I feel that there's a movie coming. But this book, people, it's a great Christmas gift. You can buy a package. You can buy a book as well as I get some Uncle Nearest whiskey. That's a great package. That's a perfect package. To have this whiskey and then understand the history behind it. Love and whiskey is what fond for people who will purchase it. You can get it anywhere on Amazon, wherever you buy your books. Go out and get it. Please to what is it? What is the goal? When people read that? What would you like them to walk away with?
I think the subtitle almost tells it all, which is the remarkable true story of Jack Daniel, his master Distiller nears Green, and the improbable rise of Uncle Nears This story, this book, it tells all those things. So people who read it and they're looking for an incredible business book, This thing sat on the New York Times bestseller list on the business side for thirteen weeks and on the nonfiction side hardcover for five weeks. And so when you look at who it's appealing to, one of the things I've been so fascinated with is most men read it in two days. It's been and I kept seeing it on social media so much that I finally DMed one person who had posted it, and I said, can you tell me what it is? The two day thing? And he said, because what you're doing is so unbelievable. We know you're still living, so we know nobody killed you in this process, but we can't put it down till we get to the end to figure out how did you get to that goatlet? And so you get the unfiltered version of how this company was built, but you also get the unfiltered version of how Jack Daniel became who he was, how Nearest Green became who he was, and why we're still talking about both of them.
And that is it, and it is so shall it be done? What a great gift. That's a gift we need to give for everybody for the holidays. Like I feel like that's that's it makes no perfect sense. It's the only thing to give up. It's the only thing to I agree.
Women are devouring it, and I knew that women would devour it. But I'm especially proud that men are reading it as quickly as women are, because it's it's very rare for there to be a book that men and women are equally touched by.
What keeps you up at night?
Nothing? I sleep real, Well, what are.
Your goals after you finish creating this huge dynasty that you've already created and are continuing to pour into. Is there another industry you'd like to delve into?
Absolutely not. I'll spend all of my days building in this industry, because when you look at the spirit conglomerates around the world, they've been doing this for generations, and so it will take me an entire generation just to get this to a place that can even really truly compete with these spirit conglomerates that have been doing this for generations. So no, the spirits industry has me for every breath that I'm here. But you will see the Cognac Company rise to be something extraordinary and go toe to toe with all the other big cognac houses that are out there. You will see the same thing from the vodka company across the board. You will begin to see my fingerprint in every single part of this spirit's industry street. And that'll take for me the better part of the next twenty five years. And after that, I just want to be chairman of the board and just kind of chill. I don't know, chill.
Yeah, you deserve that. You deserve that when you are presented with the problem. How's what's the first thing you do when you when you begin to turn to solution, orient positively, pray say it again, pause and pray, pause and pray, pause and pray.
And it's probably. The order is probably pause, bring my breath to a control place of calm, pray, because I'm always looking for solutions when problems, when challenges come to me. I am a believer that every problem, every challenge, is essentially the shell of an opportunity. But you've got to get through the shell to get to the opportunity. The question becomes how long do you spend on the shell, And so for me, I'm always trying to get to the opportunity at the middle of it as quickly as I possibly can, so I do not waste my time or breadth on the shell.
And when you say you pause and praise the prayer, God, lead me, show me, give me the solution.
What is it. No, it's no particular prayer. It's just a continual conversation. And it's usually I will pause, and it's whatever the conversation is, because the thing is that I'm talking to God all day long, and so the pause is more so for him to be able to share with me what direction to go in next than it is for anything else. I like shortcuts, Yeah, who saying, So if he don't give me a shortcut, I want to hear it quick fasten in a hurry.
When you look back over your life and from the moment you read the article to where you are today, obviously you're in continual praise and gratefulness, but you also know that he gave this to you. It is so beautiful to watch the celebration of black women, and I think that oftentimes there is this narrative that we aren't celebrated. But if we take a moment to pause and pray and to acknowledge, we see more of it than we really think we do. And so I thank you today for me for one giving me encouragement, but two reminded me that we are celebrated and we are winning in a world that may make us feel some times, especially after the election. You put a post up, and I think that people may not have received it the way in which your intention was. And I understood, Oh.
They did ninety nine percent? Did I didn't get I didn't get negative.
Responsibley. I'm glad. I'm glad. I'm glad because I felt like people were pushing back. Maybe that was a private conversation, but I was like, I understand what she's saying, and I love that. I love what you said because You're like, look, no matter what, he's still in the throne, y'all.
This is gonna happen every four years, our every three. Yes, you have a country in which people have different world views. People got so upset after that election, like Jesus died again. Okay, so we need to start there at understanding that she got further to the White House than any person. When you look at side by side how her performance was compared to Trump in twenty six in twenty twenty, wipe the floor with them. If you look at her performance compared to Hillary Clinton's performance, she I think she got four million more votes? Mean she Hillary or she no, Kamala got four I think it's four million more votes than Hillary did. And she got like six million more votes than Trump did on the last election.
And Hillary won the popular vote, more people voted for her. It was the electoral college that stopped the wind. I hear what you're saying. What I took from your message was and everyone could receive it because there was so much pain, and it reminded us, many of us, I'm not speaking for all black women, but it reminded them of their personal experience, primarily at work. I would think, but the reality was, we have to dust ourselves off, figure this out and get back to not focusing on the shell. Let's get back to figuring out the solution. But most importantly, what did our ancestors go through. I'm speaking from somebody who was broken. I'm like, my ancestors would be embarrassed.
Listen, they would, they would beat our tails, yes, over these that going on. They're like, you do realize we came here in change. Well, even if we just go back, even if we just go back to the sixties, y'all, we could be legally fire hoes. So we have to understand Number one, the progress has been that has been made has been great, and you cannot ripe and a peach with a blowtorch. Every four years, we keep trying to take a blow torch to this peach called America. We are still in our infancy. You try. I mean, you travel the world like I do. There's literally bottles of cognac older than our entire country. Correct, So we have to remember every four years. Democracy is working as it's supposed to. But that means that you have people from different plate backgrounds, different worldviews that are not going to agree with your worldview. It's going to happen every four years. And if we allow ourselves to be rocked every four years like people were rocked in this election, come on.
Now, we'd be we would be exhausted, we couldn't continue. And that's not what we're built from. It's not in our DNA and it's not our cellular memory. And I am aware of that. And I listened when you said that. I was like, get I get it. Listen, but you know, I think and I'll be fair because I understand the hurt, like we've all been heard before. But the reality is, what do we do? Give this pain some per and remember.
Absolutely, And it's here's the thing. It's okay to be hurt. It's from pay to grief, but move move like what our ancestors did to get us to this place. It is disrespectful for them.
It is this.
Ground. It is just they. I mean, every when an African American doesn't show up to vote, if it is so annoying to me, because knowing what our ancestors went through to get us the right to vote, not voting to me is absolutely absurd because this was not something that was given to us. Yes, this is something that was fought for with blood.
You talked about poll tax at the very beginning of this podcast, and it's just a reminder as we wrap this podcast. It's disrespectful. It really truly is if we don't go out there and vote and continue to fight in whatever way that looks for you, for me, whatever the mission is. I when I think about how successful you've been in business, which is why I wanted to talk to you, your mindset is different. This is why everybody doesn't have a billion dollar corporation, right so as I everyone doesn't have it. But if we could incorporate that, if we could incorporate that mindset, what is your message? What is your message not just to black women, but what is your message when you go into any process. Your business philosophy is what it is. There an elevator pitch to your business philosophy.
No, but stop getting stuck on the challenges. Stop focusing on the challenges the way that I describe it. Because people love to ask me the same question, what has been your biggest challenge? And I always respond to them that's like asking you Sidney with Laughlin, which hurdle is the most challenging hurdle? What the hell. You're a hurdler, So every hurdle is My job is to keep the pace, to know the rhythm in between those hurdles. That is my job. So as an entrepreneur, you can't get stuck on the challenges. Those are simply hurdles. They're supposed to be there. If you want to be if you want to be a Shakatte Carrie Richardson or a Noah Alliles or any of those folks, don't be an entrepreneur.
Yeah, your track will not be clear. It won't, but that's in life. You know, I needed this in my spirit. Thank you for that. Don't get stuck on the challenge. Don't don't look at the shell. Let's get to the middle of it. Let's get to the solution. Let's figure it out quick. It changes your whole philosophy. Not fine. I'm telling you. I don't know about anybody else, but this is for me. This word was for me. You always have a word, but this was for me. And we so need to hear that. We need to hear that we need not when people were you know, we we have different people in our lives and it's a mindset that's some people can't adopt. But once you show them it can be done.
It can be done. I tell people all the time, I deal with challenges every day that have taken entrepreneurs out if they had to deal with it one time and a five year window, and I deal with them every day. And for me, when I look at something and there's a challenge that comes at me, I don't have time to sit there and focus on that challenge. I've got to find the solution as quickly as possible. And if I feel stalemate in that solution, guess what. I'm working on something else that I already know the solution for. Because when that happens, it's a little bit like if you're looking for if you're looking for keys, you can't find the keys, you can't find the keys, you finally stop looking for the keys, and all of a sudden, keys are right in front of you. That's the same way it is with challenges. If you keep looking at the challenges, you missed the solution.
I want to thank Fann Weaver for being our guest this week on Naked sport Words. Truly appreciate how candid she is, and more importantly, the way in which she only looks for solutions. I hope you all enjoyed this edition of Naked Sports. Talk to y'all later. Naked Sports written and executive produced by me Kerry Champion, produced by Jock Vice Thomas Sound Design, and mastered by Dwayne Crawford. Associate producer Olubusayl Shabby. Naked Sports is a part of the Black Effect podcast Network in iHeartMedia
