Arlan Hamilton: Building Wealth, Freedom & Opportunity from the Ground Up

In this inspiring episode of A Lighthouse in the Dark, Michael Fishman sits down with entrepreneur, author, investor, and trailblazer Arlan Hamilton for a powerful conversation about resilience, reinvention, business, family, and building a life of purpose after hardship.

Michael and Arlan open up about their shared experiences being unhoused, the lessons learned during seasons of uncertainty, and the strength it takes to keep believing in yourself when the world has not yet caught up to your vision. Together, they explore entrepreneurship as more than business. It can be a path toward freedom, dignity, ownership, and opportunity.

Arlan shares wisdom from her journey helping others build businesses, create wealth, and move toward financial independence, especially people who have been underestimated, overlooked, or left out of traditional systems. This conversation is about what happens when good people are given access, encouragement, tools, and belief.

Honest, hopeful, and deeply motivating, this episode is a reminder that where you start does not have to decide where you finish.

Because sometimes the darkest chapters become the foundation for building a brighter future.

Full episodes can be watched as well on YouTube @alighthouseinthedark channel.

For more connection and exclusive content please subscribe to the official @alighgthouseinthedark Substack.

Additional content is available across social media @alighthouseinthedark

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:08

Welcome back to Lighthouse in the Dark. Today we have someone who is the most amazing entrepreneur that I know. A powerhouse, someone who is inspiring and lifting other people. A very amazing friend of mine, Arlen Hamilton. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Thanks for having me here.

SPEAKER_05 0:25

Probably the first place to start is like, what does it mean to be an entrepreneur? What does it really mean?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Wow, um, it means a few things, but um it means that you see something missing in the world that you want to see exist and you help create it. That's the basic way that I put it. It's there's a lot of innovation that comes with being an entrepreneur. You also have to have thick skin and you have to have a lot of patience and um be willing to always be a student.

SPEAKER_05 0:56

I'm gonna kind of shout you out from this because some portion of this whole thing started from you and me having conversations, and you were like, you need to put more content out in the world. Yes. You need to be on YouTube, you need to be sharing things, you need to be sharing the stuff you know and sharing your expertise.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13

So I'm going to both say thank you, and my business partner is also gonna be like, Arlen.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

I'm an investor as well. And investing is all about seeing not only potential, because obviously you have more than potential, but seeing where things can be in a few years from where they are where you're not really sure what it will be. And I just feel like your presence on YouTube is much needed. And so you do such a great job on on social, Instagram, things like that, um, on the shorter forum, but the long forum, just hearing you talk and being able to have conversations with you, I knew that more people needed to see that.

SPEAKER_05 1:51

Well, I appreciate you. I appreciate the support and the kindness. Yeah, of course. I want to go into the investing part, right? Okay. Because you built a fund.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:59

Um, backstage capital, you built this massive fund to really fill a gap. Talk about why you decided to do that and what the motivation was.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Sure. So about I would say 12 or so years ago, I wanted to start a tech company. And the reason I wanted to start a tech company was because I'd always been an entrepreneur at heart. I just didn't know what it was, what to call it. I would do these different projects, but I didn't know that that's what it was. And I started fig finding out while I was working on the road with musicians that a lot of these musicians with money were spending money in Silicon Valley, a place called Silicon Valley. I had no idea what that meant. And so I was very curious. So I would I would like eavesdrop on their conversations with their managers. And what I came to learn was okay, you put in a certain amount of money, small amount, you know, relative, and then maybe the company will become Twitter or Netflix or Airbnb. And so I at first I just said, Oh, I want to start a tech company because that seems to be where people are making money. And then when I set out to learn about how do you get investment for your tech company, how do you even start, who do you hire, I learned a statistic that would change everything for me. And that is that less than 10% of venture funding, venture capital, goes to women of all stripes in the United States, people of color of all genders, and LGBTQ plus founders. Ten less than 10%, where straight white men make up about 30% of the country. So I it kind of stopped me in my tracks when I was on this, even though I was poor, broke, everything else, it just stopped me and I said, What if I raised a million dollars for this company that I pretty much thought I if I put my mind to it, I could probably make it happen, even though I was like bouncing around from house to house. I said, What will happen then? And who else will be with me? Like what to what end? And that's when I decided what I really need to do, instead of trying to raise a million dollars for myself for one company, one chance at bat, what if I could raise a million dollars and invest 25,000 at a time into several companies from people who look like me or represent me. Because I'm all three of those things that make up uh that that 10%. So I'm a black gay woman in in the United States, my chances of getting funding were very, very low. I felt like I could yell about it and be upset about it, which I was, and I could also start writing checks and get into the conversation and have some weight and some power and leverage in the conversation. Now at this point, I was more than broke. I was in debt, negative bank account. Well, actually didn't even have a bank account because it had been taken away, um, bouncing from place to place, but I saw it as clear as day.

SPEAKER_05 5:07

It's so fascinating to me because this is being a lighthouse in the storm, essentially, is you are lighting up the world around you. You are literally taking this gap you see in the world where the world is not supporting people just like you. And instead of just saying, Okay, I want support, which a lot of people do, you said, No, no, I want to light the world for everybody else, and I want to be the support. And that's an incredible like path to take, right? Because you weren't a huge business person at this point.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

No, no.

SPEAKER_05 5:40

Right? No, because people see you now and they're like, oh, she's she's an entrepreneur and like she's done all these things. You built backstage capital, you've invested in over 200 companies. Like, this is a global impact at this point.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_05 5:52

But where were you then?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Then I when I first had the idea, I was on the road with musicians and I was so you'd make like I remember I made $1,500 one week and I was like over the moon, because that's a lot of money. And I had been doing like uh production assistant jobs when I could find them in Texas, because I was in Texas. I was doing one-off things, and I was making enough to to for ends to meet, and then I wasn't. And so my mom and I got together and we she was in her 60s, I was in my 30s. We got a hotel room and we stayed in it as long as we could. We shared it as long as we could, and then we couldn't any longer. So we got a rental car on one, like her credit card, and we drove around the country and like sleeping on couches. And this is like it's it it breaks my heart to even say it now because my mom was in her 60s and this was happening, and we were kind of both just trying to figure stuff out. I was very, very like cash poor. I was like, you know, I had love and I had laughter and family, so I didn't feel poor poor, but I was cash poor. And then it got to a point that was like it got to a point where I no longer could stand seeing my mom in that position. So I sent her back to her sisters in Mississippi and she slept on her couch, which was also heartbreaking to me. And I said, I have to fix something. And I actually ended up sleeping on the floor of an airport in San Francisco, like the San Francisco airport. And um I didn't have any money. I didn't have anywhere to go. And people today don't they kind of say, Oh, why didn't you stay at a friend's house or stay with family? Well, first I didn't have any family that I could really stay with because we were like bursting at the seams when it came to you know where what we had. Didn't have anyone um who could afford it. A lot of people who wanted to help but couldn't.

SPEAKER_03 7:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

And then when friends, I had just gone to the well so many times. And it was just like I was this out of favors. So I I chose a place that I felt would be safe enough because you know, it was indoors. I d I felt like if I slept on the streets, that would probably be the the the thing that broke my spirit. So I wanted something that was relatively safe, and I still, you know, I was like, I don't know if it's legal to do this or whatever, but I just told myself you you missed your flight. And every day I missed my flight. And so I was just staying overnight.

SPEAKER_05 8:26

As somebody who was unhoused for a while, I'm almost like that was brilliant, and almost mad at myself for not thinking about it, to be very honest with you. Like, because I'm Because I knew if I stayed on the street for very long, I don't know that I would have made it back.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:43

Because for me the beautiful thing about the airport, and correct me if I'm wrong, is the fact that the people change most every day, with the exception of the people who work there.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

For the people that work there, and I would have to like bounce around because I was like, uh these guys are seeing there's this like cops on a or like security on a on a segue to San Francisco. Yeah. And I was like, they know. Right. But I had to keep moving. But yeah, you know, I I remember before this happened, I was in Hollywood, because this was San Francisco. I was in Hollywood, and there were a few nights that I didn't have anywhere to go, so I would just walk during the night.

SPEAKER_04 9:20

Me too.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Because I'm like, I'm not gonna sleep at night on the street, it's just too dangerous. So I would walk during the night. I went in, I don't know if you ever did this, but I don't want us to get like too glorified because it was not good.

SPEAKER_05 9:32

No, no, I like I don't glorify it, but I do think there's a power in the honesty.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, 100%. So once like this, I don't know, period of time um before all of this, I realized like at Hollywood and Highland, across from the hotel that's over there, that was has been multiple different names, there is a donut shop. And I would go in, it's 24 hours.

SPEAKER_03 9:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

So I'd go into that donut shop at like 11 or 12, and I would get together like a buck, and I'd buy a donut, and I'd just sit there as long as I possibly could. And then around like four or five in the morning, a bunch of cops would come to it because it's a donut shop, and they would be there, and it's like it's actually true. And they would be there, and so I would kind of find my way out because I just didn't, you know, I didn't uncomfortable. Yeah, it was uncomfortable. I didn't want to be a I didn't want to anybody ask me questions. Right. But that was one of my little hacks that I had. So it was that I before I thought of the what what you're calling brilliant idea, I actually did there, I was on the streets, so to speak, but I just would I refuse to sleep on the concrete at night because I just thought I'm gonna get hurt. I'm going to get hurt.

SPEAKER_05 10:41

At the Union Station here?

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:43

I slept in there in a chair during the day. So I could be mobile at night. Yeah. The same kind of thing. I knew that when it gets dark, yeah, the other people who have bad intentions are out and this is gonna work out badly for me. Um I used to do I used to walk up to Dodger Stadium when the bleacher seats were three dollars. And it was both beautiful and painful because I would sit there and for three bucks and a couple bucks I could get a hot dog or get whatever. And I'd the hard part was I would watch all these families.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:17

And be like, I can't give that to the people around me yet.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Yeah. Or don't I have it for myself?

SPEAKER_05 11:22

And I don't have it, right? But I can't but I can't give this. Like I I don't have anything to offer. Yeah. Right? Which is how I felt in the beginning. And then all of a sudden I had to change that narrative in my head and start to chart a new path.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah. Yeah, it's like uh I I think for the first time I just felt what a lot of people around me have told me they felt. And I always just dismiss it, but I just felt like, oh man, I wish we knew each other because I would have helped, you know? Yeah, I just think. I know, is it every time you say it to me, I'm the same thing. I'm like, I wish I was there. People say that to me, and I'm like, oh, it's it's fine, it's in the past. But like I totally understand why they say it now. Yeah. Because I'm like, oh yeah, I totally would have we would have found a way. I would have been like, Michael needs a place to stay, and we would have found you a place to stay.

SPEAKER_05 12:06

And then I did the couch thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:08

For um, I tried to be a day laborer.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 12:11

And I got horribly sunburnt because I'm super pale, um, which was a disaster. I didn't speak enough Spanish.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:19

But I knew enough to be kind of a translator in bits and pieces. Yeah. But nobody wanted to hire me because I was so small and kind of frail, and then I literally fried my skin off. And um, one of the guys literally was like, You're not gonna make it. And so he found me a job being a dishwasher.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:36

Which was the first thing, right? So it was like the first step. And then I shared an apartment. I was the ninth guy in a studio apartment. Nope. And I was like, Absolutely not, which is also something there's a privilege in being a young male because in that stance I didn't have the same worries because had I been female in that environment, it it would have been a tremendously more dangerous scenario. Yeah, of course. And so, and then I remember I built bunk beds. I went and bought two by four and built furniture for us to get us up all the ground because we're all stacked.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:10

But I remember the first time I had a bathroom again where I could close the door.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:15

And how different that feels. And I joke about it now, because I've taken a cold shower every day ever since. I've my adult life I've never I only unless there's another person or at a hotel is the only time I take warm.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Why?

SPEAKER_05 13:29

It's my reminder every day.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Oh, I see. How you're trying to be like, uh, what is that? What is that movie? The it's not the hunchback of Notre Dame, it's the Monte Carlo Oh, Monte Cristo. Yeah, Monte Cristo, the Count of Monte Cristo.

SPEAKER_05 13:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

You know, after he was in that prison, he he had to sleep on the floor because he just couldn't get comfortable elsewhere.

SPEAKER_05 13:48

Yeah, so I cold showers unless I'm at a hotel, because it's a reminder of how lucky I am to be in that scenario.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 13:55

It's something I just held on to. Um, but I don't think people realize you and I are both people who decided we wanted a different path.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:05

And we're like, I have to change something both in the world around me, but in me.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:12

And I think that's a huge thing.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Yeah, and and uh I I think I always I don't think I'm a different person now, but there was like oh I I can't keep doing this. Like I can't live like this.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

There's like a break point before it would be a question of how long is this going to be? Right. How long do I have to be in this situation? And then there was that break point of like, oh no, no, I will not be in this situation again. Uh I remember a couple of points like that, and and and thankfully I was right. You know, because you make the decision and and things happen around you and there's systemic things, there's all kinds of stuff. But you you f you have to find the strength. You have to find it. And unfortunately and fortunately, nobody's coming to save us.

SPEAKER_05 15:01

I I tell people all the time people think I'm crazy when I say it's the best thing that ever happened to me is nobody came to save me.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:07

Because I had to learn how to save myself.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Well, yeah, and I I remember just wishing like there were some wealthy people I knew here and there on my journey who I wished would just kind of save the day. And now I'm so grateful that they didn't because I would be under their thumb right now. I would be doing their their big vision instead of the one that I've been charting, and and um, you know, it's very, very different. And thank goodness these things fell through when they did. I mean, I'm talking about app like post-homelessness, right? Even having the fund and needing funds to resources to keep going, there were some times where I was like, Oh, I wish somebody would come in and buy it from me or come in and help. Man, it's like, you know, you you wait for the compounding interest.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

And you and the compounding effect, the compound effect of just doing things with consistency for a long time. And what we forget is that it's not even, it's compounded, which means you see the biggest result towards the later years of it. You don't see it up front. So you think, oh, it's not working because it didn't work today. Instead of realizing, oh, if I keep doing this, there's a time where actually I'll see more results than I've seen in the past. And I'm so grateful that I got all of those no's and all of those people who didn't see the vision because they then don't own the vision.

SPEAKER_05 16:38

It's so interesting because you're hoping it's easy to hope that somebody's gonna come in and buy it or make a big investment, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:44

But then you're beholden to someone. And then as you start to get to the other side where you start really building stuff, all of a sudden you're like, oh, I'm so glad that I'm not beholden to someone, right? Or like I can do things now that I would have had to fight somebody else in order to do.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Yeah. That's what I say to like creatives. I work with a lot of musicians over the years, it just kind of worked out that way. And so many of them, and I can't I can't relate because I'm not a musician, but I can understand a little bit, so many of them are looking for the record deal or whatever they call it these days. Uh, in my day, they called it a record deal. And so many people are looking for that. And I'm like, you know, if you didn't get it, that's actually probably the best thing that ever happened. Because now you like right now, you can just release music everywhere, and you can find places that pay you more than others, you can perform it the way you want to. And um, even with taking investment f as a f as a company, you have to be very sure that you want that investment. As someone who's invested in more than 200 companies, I'm saying you still need to be very careful that you you you take money from the people you want to work with for years.

SPEAKER_05 17:57

Now, talk about that for a moment, please. Because like as the investor, yeah, what do you wish people knew, or what do you wish that you had known sooner?

SPEAKER_00 18:06

The biggest thing for me is um I actually stepped down as managing partner of my fund about a year and a half ago almost. And um still the largest stakeholder, I still advise it, still bring opportunities to it, and all the compounding interest stuff is starting to happen, which is really cool. Um, but it was like it's a rat race. You know, it is just constant, it's just constant trying to impress someone. I guess the closest that I can think of is like being an actor. Because you're going in these auditions over and over and over again, you're waiting for somebody to say yes. And I just on the the as the casting director, as the person on the other side, um, I I'm more like, hey, maybe you should write your own thing and just produce your indie thing and like have more fulfillment. So for me, um I definitely the main thing I want people to know is that they do not need to have outside funding to be a legitimate company. And that it's a strategic move to get outside funding, and there are certain types of companies that um really benefit from it. But you shouldn't just go out looking for funding just because you saw a movie about it or because you think the next person, oh, you're looking over to the right or left, they got an investment, so I'm supposed to. It's actually really in the hands of a founder these days, of an entrepreneur, because we have AI. Um, for better or worse, I know the the industry doesn't love it, but we have AI, we have ways to leverage that we never have in the past. So you do not have to go into these meetings with investors begging them for money anymore.

SPEAKER_05 19:53

Yeah, I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

That's the main thing I want people to know.

SPEAKER_05 19:55

Yeah, I want to get into that because you've really built not just a path for yourself, but a path for others, and you are walking this walk.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:02

I want to go back just for a moment because there's something that you did that I think people should hear.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 20:08

Which is Stanford, which is bootstrapping to take a chance on yourself. And it kind of led to your first big investor, which was like Susan Kimberly.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Yeah, yeah, I did. I'm at the airport. I have to think about what the timing of this. So actually it was before the airport, believe it or not. The reason I was in San Francisco to begin with was I was in Texas, uh, which is my home uh home state, and I heard about this contest. It was like a contest and always and also like a boot camp. So it was an investing boot camp that was two weeks long that would happen at Stanford, put on by an accelerator, like for um companies. And the contest part of it was that they were letting uh uh first of all, they were giving like a 50% off thing for women because they were just like there's all these dudes that were applying and they just wanted to be better than that. So that was cool, but it started at $18,000 and I had no money. So it started at 18 and it was going to be $9,000. And then you had to, in order to even get that, you had to get three votes by people that they knew. So this whole like warm introduction thing, I didn't know anybody there. So I started reaching out to people. I started doing like, you know, I think women in general, we know how to find stuff online. Like that's just kind of our one of our superpowers. And so I just started looking on LinkedIn and diff different places and just reaching out to as many people as possible and telling them my story and just saying, hey, just can you can you vouch for me? And that finally worked out. And then I applied and I got in, and then it was a matter of okay, how do I get $9,000 when I have don't have nine dollars to eat?

SPEAKER_03 21:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

So um a couple things happened. One is there's a guy named Chris Saka who invested in Uber and Twitter famously. He's a billionaire. He calls himself an accidental billionaire, which I hate that term. And I've told him that to his face. I hate the term so much. But he is a billionaire. He's been on Shark Tank. He's kind of controversial and only in his practices, you know, like the how he does business. And um I had been like emailing him and talking to him on Twitter back in the day. And when this came up and I got in, I said, Look, I need to go to this. I I don't even know what it's about, but I know that it's about investing, and I think this is for me. So what he did was he um I set up like a it wasn't a GoFundMe, but it was kind of like that. It was some a company that no longer exists, and he put the first $500 in. So it was like his $500, but also his name.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Because at the time everybody knew him for Twitter. And um, so that was good. And then I just started sending it out to people and just getting it in front of as many people as I could online, and then I raised like three or four thousand dollars in a couple of weeks. So that got me enough to get a flight to get the first those two weeks Airbnb, almost two weeks of Airbnb, and to put like a down payment on it. And that they let me come in with that.

SPEAKER_05 23:17

Because I was the only, yeah, go ahead. Because I want people to realize like, yeah, part of this is and part of being an entrepreneur is you gotta take some shots on yourself.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:26

Big, bold, like and and yeah, it wasn't comfortable, you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

None of this was comfortable. It was all like that's why people come to me today and they're like, okay, I need $500,000. And I'm like, okay, what have you done? Well, I haven't done anything because I don't have any money. I'm like, you're talking to somebody who did X, Y, Z, you can't just say you're waiting on some magical person to come and just hand you a bunch of money. It has there has to be some ingenuity that happens. And it it I call it being um hungry, not thirsty. So being desperate is something that people can pick up on pretty easily, and it turns people off and it makes people feel like, ugh, I don't want to go in that direction because it just feels wrong. But if you feel if it's like hungry, like I'm passionate, I'm willing to work for this, I'm willing to be smart about this, strategic about it, you do attract people who want to see you win. And that's what I felt that I was doing. It was doing it that in the in the best way I could. So I got myself in the room, and um from there I just kind of used those two weeks to to network and to like learn a ton. I learned, and then I also realized oh, everybody here is so wealthy. Like everybody there was wealthy. They had like family office money, meaning like I'm talking hundreds of millions of dollars in some cases. And then there are people who had maybe 10 to 30 million dollars. They were all staying at fancy hotels. I was staying at an Airbnb uh where there were gunshots at night, you know. And but I realized something when I was there. I realized that I already knew more than most people who were sitting in that room, and that I could answer the questions that the professors were asking faster than a lot of people in that room. And I'm like, wow, in many ways, I'm the wealthiest person here.

unknown 25:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

And it was it was really that moment where I said, okay, I'm just gonna go for this and I'm gonna do what I need to do. So I decided to stay in San Francisco. I only had a one-way ticket, so it kind of made the decision for me. Yeah, and then um I did I eventually ended up in that airport, and um a few weeks later, the one a woman that I had met at that event or that that uh boot camp, she became my first investor, Susan.

SPEAKER_05 25:44

Yeah. It sparked something in you, yeah. And and you were like, this you knew you were legit, but that gave you the opportunity, and I I think it's very interesting because the first thing you did with that wasn't pocket that, which is what a lot of people would have done. Right?

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Because I think I don't even that doesn't even register for me. I don't know that that would a lot of people would have.

SPEAKER_05 26:05

But I think a lot of people would have. They would have been like, okay, I can your perspective on this is I think is so valuable because a lot of people would have gone, okay, I can breathe for a second.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:14

I'm gonna enrich myself.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Right.

SPEAKER_05 26:16

Which is not the way you go about it. You're like, oh, I have money to invest now. I have a chance to do something and help people.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, the whole premise that I was going in was I'm going to invest in underrepresented founders. Like that was that was not popular at the time. Right. It was not we were not talking about DEI 12 years ago, 10 years ago when this was all happening. And it was not popular. And in fact, it was a thing that was the biggest barrier to getting money. Because I had a lot of people say, Oh, this is a good idea for a nonprofit if you want to do that. I'm like, no. And then they had people say, Well, if you want to do something that's like in data, because back then before AI, it was like big data, yeah, was the thing. If you want to do big data, if you want to do like climate change, if you want to do something like that, that we're we are talking about, then we can talk to you. I even had someone at that boot camp. Um, she was from a country that is not friendly to LGBTQ Plus, right? And I had been telling everybody there this is what I invest in, right, or will invest in. She came to me and she said that she had connections in her country with the government and that they would be willing to put in a significant amount of money if I could get other people to invest, as long as I took away the mandate of the LGBTQ part. And I said, Absolutely not. I thank you, but no, like that is just not going to happen. Because it would be like somebody saying, we can do this if you just take out the black part.

SPEAKER_05 27:45

Right. Just take out the black part. Just take out a core component that is very important to you and take out a core component of who you are.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Yeah, exactly. And I was like, no. And even if I I don't I I don't I'll never know, but I I believe that even if I weren't a gay person, then I would still find that to be really offensive if that's what my mandate was to begin with. So there was the there were a lot of um hurdles having this as a mandate, especially early on.

SPEAKER_05 28:12

Now talk about when you met somebody who finally made a big investment in you, who has continued to invest in you.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Who are you talking about specifically? Because there's so many.

SPEAKER_05 28:20

There's so many. The first one I'm thinking of early on was Mark Cuban.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Oh yeah. So actually Mark came along, I would say halfway.

SPEAKER_05 28:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Um, maybe a little bit. Like, so it was 2019, and by that point, so all of that that I just described was 2015. Right. Right. And um, then I went on to make several investments, some key investments, including one that is like the company today just announced a $300 million deal that they're doing, and we put in $25k their first round. It's it's kind of crazy how this is happening. But in 2019, I was heavy on Twitter, always talking on Twitter, always stirring something up. And Twitter came to me when they were not owned by um um Elmo. They came to me and said, Hey, we're doing South by Southwest, this festival in Austin. Um do you want to speak on stage with Mark Cuban? Because we're gonna do a Twitter house where it's like the two two people who use Twitter in an interesting way. So I said, of course. Like I grew up in Dallas, so yes, of course. So I we go out, I meet him first of all. He has no entourage. And I had a bigger entourage than he did. I had my family, I had a makeup person of security.

SPEAKER_05 29:38

Speaking of which, you travel with your family.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:41

Which I love. I do because your family is all about it, and you guys are all about each other in the most beautiful way.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 29:49

And and that is one thing that you have held on to the whole time. And that no portion of any success has changed really for any of you, because you've helped them have their own success and they've built their own.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

I mean, they've built their things. So, like, my mom before this happened, you know, 2019 at South by with Mark Cuban, 2014, I'm staying in a car in a rental car with my mom.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Just like lit sleeping in a rental car just to attend it, so I can maybe find investors. So if she's gonna be with me in the car, she's gonna be with me at four seasons. Like, it's just the way it is. But we do, like we keep each other, we keep our spirits high for each other because we're still going, we still go through stuff all the time. It's not like we're that goes away. Right. You know, it's just different. And uh we keep our spirits high, and as we all like to point out to each other, we have a a thread that says luxury travelers. That's just the way we call each other. But we like to point out we've always been bougie. Like even when we were broke, we've just always been bougie. Like my mom has always been like we call her dear Devereaux, like from you know, she's just what do you mean I am supposed to share a room, you know?

SPEAKER_05 30:58

But in the case, your mom, your mom is elegant, is the word, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Like like but she bowls like this. Like she bowls and she twists and she Oh, when she walks in a room, yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_05 31:12

Yeah, she got a presence, yeah, but like, but not there's a peculiar kind of like beautiful elegance that doesn't have arrogance.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

100%.

SPEAKER_05 31:22

And that like to me, that's your family. Yeah. Right? Because like, oh, we're real, but we have expectations of who we are and what we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Yeah, and I mean, so so I was rolling with that cast of characters, right? Um, and Cuban was by himself, you know, uh in the backstage area. And I walked up to him and he and he said, Um, hey, that must be Mrs. Sims or Erlen or however he did talked about my mom. I'm like, oh, you looked up my mom, my family, that's pretty cool. And we went out, when we went out onto the stage, people were just screaming his name, Mark or Cuban, and they were screaming. And by the time we left, they were screaming my name.

SPEAKER_04 31:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Because I had gone toe-to-toe with him. And um, I wasn't, I just wasn't intimidated by him at all. So I I think I left an impression on him. And I did ask him right after that, hey, will you invest in my fund? And he just said kind of kindly on Twitter DM, he's like, I don't really like to invest in other people's funds. I only do it every once in a while. I like to, I have too much fun investing directly.

SPEAKER_03 32:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

So that was that. Um, a few months later, a really kind of hurtful press piece came out about me. It it's it was in the, you know, like in the venture world, it was like, you know, in TechCrunch or I can't no, I can't remember anymore what it was in. It wasn't TechCrunch.

SPEAKER_05 32:40

This is the nature that people don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:43

No one wants to talk to you when they think you're coming up or you don't have something.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:48

Then people want to talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:50

Then people want to destroy you so that they can talk about you. Right. And then if you can make it through all of that and keep yourself, then they want to talk with you.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Yeah. Let me t let me tell you exactly how that's played out. So they they the press did talk to me when I was like, you know, when people started saying, oh, who's this woman who's like used to be homeless recently and has started this fund for black people, basically. And so that was nice. Um this one was it was like the title was like um Hamilton Fund Hamilton's fund falls through because I had announced that I was going to raise a $36 million fund to invest in black women, and um we hadn't reached that yet. Literally, that's what happened. Like we hadn't reached it yet, which happens it's the very All the time with every fund that's ever existed. It's the very essence of what a fundraise is.

SPEAKER_05 33:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

It's like saying um that our trip to New York failed because we were in the air.

SPEAKER_04 33:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Like from LA. Yeah. Like, okay. So they used a very unflattering picture. It was a teardown, it was just a really bad and it hurt me. And some of the investors who were already committed saw it and backed out. So it was very, very painful. And Cuban, I just I was like looking online and I was like, oh, and I saw this message from him on Twitter, same thread, and you could see where he'd said no right above it, and he said, Hey, um, I saw the I saw the piece because it was like everywhere. And he said, I saw the piece. He said, I'm gonna give you a million dollars and you're gonna invest it any way you want to, so we can make you rich, so you have to deal with this shit. Which I basically was how he said it.

SPEAKER_04 34:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

And so we did that and we didn't tell anybody because he didn't he didn't want to any fanfare. And then unfortunately, a year later, we watched someone get murdered on live tele, you know, on television with George Floyd, and um we had already deployed that million, and Mark sent me an email, and all it said in the subject was want to do some more. And uh it said, Hey, how about another five million? And I wrote him back and I said, We can deploy that. We have the ability to like because you it's one thing to just get it, but if you don't know how where it should go, you shouldn't take it. Right. So I said, Yeah, we have the ability and the means like to do that.

SPEAKER_05 35:11

Can you say that one more time for the people in the back who may be slow or hard of hearing? If you don't know.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Yeah, if you don't know how to spend something or you don't know how to use a resource, you really shouldn't take it. Uh or at least have the clock starting on you right away. Right. Because it can look like, oh man, that's great. But you have to understand, I appreciate Mark more than anything. But we were at a time where we like our lives were on the line. Right. And this was like really in front of us, our faces, and I think that he did the right thing. I also think that just like I think he probably would agree with me. We we often kind of go go at it, you know, whatever our opinion is, but I think just the goodwill and and promotion of doing that alone is worth the six million. But I also feel like like I asked him, hey, why did you give me six million dollars when the dust settled? I said, why did you give me six million dollars when you don't like to invest in funds? And he said, You're gonna be in rooms that I'll never be in. So he was thinking strategically. He's like, let me let me send my money to work for me.

SPEAKER_05 36:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

It's been a few years, but I do think he's gonna be really happy with his investment. Yeah, I think he's gonna be really happy with it. I kept saying to him, hey, do you want to do you want me to call up like Bloomberg? Do you want me to call up Forbes? Do you want me to make a big deal so that you can like this people don't do this? I can tell you firsthand, they don't do this.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

He said no. He said, only do it if it helps you, like if it helps to do it. And I so I went to him finally and I said, Hey, I want to do it, I want to put it out there. So he said, Okay, only if you let this particular very small blog that was run by a woman of color be the exclusive.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Yeah. He said, if you do if you let them get the exclusive and then it's like a 24 hour kind of embargo, then yes, and then and then yeah. So she did it. She had a tiny, tiny, tiny audience, but he had been helping her, so he wanted to kind of kill two birds, one stone. So that's what happened. We then went on to invest in several companies, including the company that I just mentioned had the $300 million deal. That's just one of their deals. So it's like, you know, you have that, you have several other companies that were invested in, and over the next few years, we're we're gonna see what happens.

SPEAKER_05 37:27

Talk to me about pivoting. Because you've built this thing. Most people would be holding on to it for dear life.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:36

But you have looked at it, and I think I heard you say something, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard you say it was time to let other people carry that further.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 37:46

I'm still involved, I'm still around, I'm still But it can go places that I not necessarily am looking to take it.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 37:55

And I have other things.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Yeah, so backstage capital, um, we've invested in I stopped counting at 200 because it's like you don't normally do that. You normally invest maybe in 10 to 30 companies as well. And you keep going. We were just doing things differently from the beginning. Um, always, always looked weird, and then it looked genius, and then it looked weird, and it just continued to like I knew that if I gave it another decade or two that I could turn it into a billion-dollar fund, and I could really get a lot like all the accolades accolades, right? I could get all of the like benefit of it, but it never was about that. And also I was so burnt out and I was jaded, really was jaded because I saw so much. I've seen so many people who I looked up to disappoint me. I'm like, ugh, this is what this is behind the curtain. I don't want it. So it's funny because right now, Backstage Capital, my fund, is raising $200 million. It's raising the biggest fund it ever has, and I have nothing to do with it. And when I say nothing to do with it, I mean I'm not part of the fundraise.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

I'm part of the like legacy. I'm I own more than 50% of the of what will be the uh ROI if there is any return on investment. And it it's just being run by other people because uh you know, remember what I said I started out because I wanted to start a company.

SPEAKER_03 39:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

I want to start a company. So I said, you know, um I can put it as long as I can put it in good hands, right? Then I don't need to be at the finish line when all this goes really well. And to be honest, like when any of these 200 companies that I that I did invest in, if any of them do well, I'll still get praise for it. I'll still get the like, oh, you pat on the back, you know. It's not like I'm like completely turning that over. I just don't need to be the one who raised the $200 million fund. I don't need to be the one who got us the 300 investments or any of them.

SPEAKER_05 39:57

Who has to manage it every single day?

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Yeah, I'm I feel like I'm a great, what's the word? I'm a great leader, but I'm not a great manager. And I'm just we we had teams, large, small, whatever. I took them through um COVID, I took them through George Floyd's murder, I took them through our own ups and downs and steered the ship and kept it afloat. Like kept it, it's a business. We could have gone under so many times.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

But I did that, and I like I'm proud of that, but I just don't feel like I'm the person who needs to lead us into the next the next step of this. And I have too much fun being an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_05 40:41

So I want to talk about that because you decided to start teaching people some of these lessons.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 40:46

And giving people really what I see as a a lift and a step up in the process. So first talk about you start writing a book, and I think the first one was about damn time.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Yeah, that came out in 2020, actually, right in COVID during COVID. Um, that's about it's about damn time. So that was really like a memoir and a little bit, uh hopefully inspiration. It's been told that's people's favorite of my books so far. Like it's like inspiration, it's a little funny. Right. Like my second book, Your First Million, is not funny.

SPEAKER_05 41:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

It's uh this is my fourth book.

SPEAKER_05 41:17

Is it this is the fourth, right? This is the fourth one, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

So my second book that came out in 2024, it's called Your First Million. And it's about like all the things I've learned from investing in companies and then starting my own companies about how do you make money. And it's cool, you know, it's very good. I'm very proud of it. Um, but it's not funny, and I love it's about damn time because like if you only have one book that you can read of mine and you want to you care about my life, I would get it's about damn time just because it's it it kind of it shows you how we survived all that stuff as a family, and it's I think it's really relatable. My latest book is Arlen's Authority Playbook. To me, this is my favorite book, like so far, because it tells you step by step how to take what you already know and like um aim it so that you can actually make money from it. And I want people to make money first because I want to be the answer to what would have helped me 20 uh 10 years ago and and helped my mom and helped so many of us. And second, because if we have more, if like the underdogs have more money and we'll have more power, we'll have more voice, more say, and I want the people with the biggest hearts to have the biggest bank accounts. And I don't know if that'll ever happen, but I want to try. Right? So that's why. So it it in fact the reason I wrote this book and the reason that I help um about 26,000 plus people online with their businesses and I teach all the time on YouTube is the same reason I want you to have a big presence on YouTube, and I want other people to have a presence because uh it's leverage. Capital is leverage and content, media is leverage, and these are things that are being currently leveraged by bad actors, right?

SPEAKER_05 43:14

Bad people. And you need people who want to shine a light and do positive things in the world, yeah, and who can right now a lot of the people who are using these assets are using them in one area or in predominantly certain circles.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:30

And there's a lot of circles that need representation and need opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Yeah, I I just feel like you probably can think of 10, 20, 30 people right this moment that if they had a million bucks, they would do some cool stuff with it.

SPEAKER_03 43:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

And that's just kind of my my thing is like I want thousands and thousands of people to have real money so they can be okay themselves and they can start to really put money back into the ecosystem and build things that that they want to see in the world.

SPEAKER_05 43:58

Yeah, and you have to have money and be Stable to really be able to deploy capital and resources towards changing something.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Yeah, you don't have to be rich to be like a philanthropist, right? You don't have to be rich to start giving back. Yeah, that's a good thing. But you do need to like feel like I know where my next meal is coming from, and I don't worry that one thing will just topple everything. My whole situation.

SPEAKER_05 44:23

I think most people, I I tell people all the time, almost everybody, particularly right now in this country, is living one emergency, one terrible tragedy, one medical crisis, one lost job from absolute just like devastation.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:39

And it's very hard for those people to be making a difference in the world around them or to feel stable enough to take a bold step when they realize that they are on the ledge all the time or feel like they're walking the tightrope.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

Have you have you found like I've found a couple of times where homeless people have been so generous to me?

SPEAKER_03 45:01

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

Like I was speaking in, I want to say it was Phoenix a few years ago, speaking at like a startup event. And everybody at the startup event got like a little coupon that, like their little thing that said, This is my lunch. Like I I can exchange it for like a truck lunch. And there was this guy there who was not like I I think they let him in just because they wanted to be nice, and he was unhoused, okay, and he was a little disruptive and everything. But he was like in the front row. And after I spoke, he came up to me and he's like, Did you eat?

SPEAKER_05 45:35

I know it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

And I'm like, What? And he's like, This is the coupon. And I'm like, but like you don't, I'm thinking to myself, you don't have anywhere to go. Like, this is probably like the one meal you're gonna get today. So I told him, I was like, no, you please keep it. But it was just that's happened a few times in different situations. And I just the will and the desire to give to other people is there. And it's just like if you're not resourced, you just may not be able to do it. But can you imagine if we were how much further that would go?

SPEAKER_05 46:06

I tell people ask me why I'm kind.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:08

I tell people I'm kind because I know what cruel looks like, but I'm also kind because in the worst moments, yeah, people who had nothing, like so often in my life, the people who were the most generous were the people with the least to give.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 46:20

And I knew people who had tons to give who weren't generous at all.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:24

And I will and I don't get to decide who other people are, so I try to like not make but I'll give you an example. The the night I was homeless, I rode the bus.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:34

And I get emotional about it. Like, this is one of those moments is the bus driver gave me his lunch.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

I remember this story from three years ago when we had our conversation, and it's still making me tear up.

SPEAKER_05 46:45

Because it was food I don't even eat, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:50

But it was the only food I had. And he took the time to give me that. Yeah. Right. And what I will tell you is, or, you know, I lived with a family in Compton who took me in, who I, you know, like the mom was like, if you go to church and then like try not to get me in trouble because you're like you have no business being here.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:12

But she made me, reminded me what home and family was supposed to look like.

SPEAKER_04 47:17

Right.

SPEAKER_05 47:18

And when she lost her son, um I ended up kind of moving out because I kind of reminded her.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:25

But but I will tell you, they saved my life in so many ways. Because that was the end of going couch to couch and trying to survive. And it was the first time with as little as they had, it was the first time I felt like oh yeah, I don't have it's not a everything is not survival. I can make plans.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Well, I have a question for you that I have not asked you and I don't know the answer to.

SPEAKER_05 47:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Is even though we've known each other for a few years here, what what was your turning point point? Like, how did you go from that to having a family and having some means to do something?

SPEAKER_05 48:04

So my first night homeless, I sat under a overpass in downtown because I didn't know where to go. But it was dark, but there was no one else around. I remember thinking to myself, what about all these people that I love? Or like, what if some of these people could see me? But I had called pretty much everybody and no one paged me back in this day. It was pre-cell phone.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:28

Um and I it's an exercise that I tell people to do all the time. So one of my favorite things, which is I tell people pick your adjectives.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 48:36

Which to me, that's what I did. Is I was like, what are the adjectives I want the world to describe me as? Because at the time I felt useless and abandoned and invisible and unimportant, and um I didn't like I like honestly, I didn't I didn't see a step forward, didn't know if I wanted to be here, right? And then it was like, okay, what are the words you want? What is it you want? Who are the people that you want? Who are the people that you remember? Like my uncle Tony, who's not even technically my uncle, but was like in my life and was the life of things. Like he used to make plates and just he would like go through a science of how to plate the plate because he just wanted people to be excited when they saw it, right? Like it was that kind of joy.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:25

And I was like, okay, what do these words look like? And so when people asked me, one of them was resilience, which is a word that's big for you. Um, do you talk about the resilience muscle? Um one of them was kindness, one of them was being like dependable.

SPEAKER_04 49:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:42

Because at the time I had nobody really dependable, or that's how I felt at the time. I think I had people, but I didn't fully grasp it, right?

SPEAKER_01 49:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:50

So I wanted to be the person that people call when they like I wanted to be the person somebody went to in that moment. And I think that was a turning point because I started defining the words I wanted the rest of the world to use. So I will tell you, when I hear the words that I wanted back frequently in my life, which is like it's a divine kind of reminder that I'm on the right track, right? It is the way I remind myself, like, oh yeah, you're being who you're supposed to be. I wanted to have a family, and I like if you had met me at 15, almost everybody I work with thought I was gonna be like, he's gonna go to college, he's gonna work, he's like all into work and school, and when he's like 45 or 50, maybe he'll have kids. Like everybody thought I was gonna be like George Clooney. Okay, that was kind of the model for me, and it was who I kind of wanted to model myself after.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

Because you were around George, literally around George. I was around George.

SPEAKER_05 50:42

Yeah, and so George was the coolest guy I knew, but the most fun version of it, right? Right. But also not married and not like so there was that like, oh, Michael be that guy.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 50:55

And then what ended up happening is I came back home briefly and then I got kicked out again.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:00

I started working and I like I figured it out, and then I got some acting work. Um, a buddy of mine gave me access to a car, which gave me mobility, right? And some freedom. Paid for an apartment. Like I was all set up when I was like 16 thinking I was living hot shit. Like I like I thought I figured out the world, yeah, had a girlfriend, had a place, had a whatever. And about the time I'd given up on the pager going off, my pager went off. And it was uh Orange County phone number where I grew up. And it was my little brother's school. And they called me and said, Um, we lost your little brother. He ran away. Oh. And I went, One, you're not that lucky. Two, he would never run away. I was like, he's there. I'm like, something something about this is not right. I said, give me 30 minutes. And I was up in Van I's so someone can do the math and hopefully their statute of limitations has run out. But I went from Van Nuys to Orange County in like 25 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:57

Showed up and found him on campus.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:00

Uh a teacher who was having early onset um dementia had forgotten that she sent him out of class.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 52:07

And obviously.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

This is a TV show in itself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:10

And all of a sudden I'm facing um police and a school that wants to expel my brother or push him out, and all this chaos that can't get a hold of my mom who's working crazy hours, and like she's a nurse and a professor and doing keeping the family together. And I had a decision to make. Step back in with my little brother or continue on this path that was purely mine. And I moved back home, and next thing I knew, I met somebody and had kids early, and like my whole path went a different way. And this is also the judgment part of it, right? Like the investment part. People in the business were like, oh, that's him spinning out. So then no one wanted to represent me. Like I lost my agent, people didn't want to hire me. People were like, oh, this is like the child actor goes off. Yeah. Yeah. And so part of that is like, okay, so then I'm gonna do exactly what you did. I'm gonna start building stuff. I'm gonna start finding my own way. I'm gonna navigate this and still be who I am. And then along the way, I found other people who were like me to help.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:14

And I've kept doing it the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

Yeah. And you've had such a rich background and experience, different experiences that you've had with different groups of people.

SPEAKER_05 53:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:27

All of those things have been so beautiful for me. And I laugh now because, like, as a writer, I can write so many different characters in so many different worlds, because I experienced so many different characters in so many different worlds. We're out pitching this law enforcement procedural, right? My writing partner, Michael and I. And at first people were like, What do you know about law enforcement? or and I'm like, well, I worked a fugitive recovery task force purely because my friend was doing it and he needed backup, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:57

But that also taught me the inequity of the system and the bias that was inherent in the system, right? So we have a law enforcement project because I'm like, I want the world to see a more realistic view, right? I want to lift other people. There's all these sitcoms, but I want people to see what real families are looking like and going through now, not what most of Hollywood's perception of it, because if you've been in this town for a long time, it's easy to start to lose track of what's going on in the regular world. Um, because being a blue-collar worker, getting up at five o'clock in the morning or going somewhere where you know I'm gonna come home with my hands tore up and my body tore up, but I'm gonna do an honest day's work. There's a power in that that people forget.

SPEAKER_00 54:40

What did you think when do you remember when I think his name I can't remember if his name is Jeffrey on the show or Jeffrey in real life, but he was on the Cosby show. He played uh Elvin. So his name is Jeffrey in real life. When they, you know, they saw him at Trader Joe's working, and now he's gonna be on the pit, I think, actually. Um I remember seeing that and thinking, I'm so glad he's alive. I'm so glad he's healthy healthy. And so many people tore him down, and then there was a bigger uproar about like, no, this is honest work. We gotta calm down over here. But did you have an opinion of it? Did you relate to it at all?

SPEAKER_05 55:17

I could very much relate because I worked a lot of tough jobs and a lot of regular jobs.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 55:22

But the other part that I always tell people is like there's a hundred and sixty-five thousand actors, give or take. And only about fourteen percent qualify for health insurance a year.

SPEAKER_01 55:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 55:34

So if you think about of that percentage, we're talking about a couple thousand people qualified for full insurance. Full insurance is thirty thousand dollars. That means they made 30 grand, and that was before they paid an agent 10%, any kind of manager any percentage, before they paid taxes, before they paid their dues. Those are not people who are rich. Now you see people in that 14% are the people making 20 million in a film, right? But there's one of those people. Most of the people are just making a decent living to a minimum wage living.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

Well, there you saw Hillary Swank won a won an Oscar, and that year she didn't qualify for insurance.

SPEAKER_03 56:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

Because I think she got paid five thousand dollars for Boys Don't Cry Yeah originally, which is one of my favorite movies.

SPEAKER_03 56:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

Uh incredible. It's incredible. I mean, it's like we're all like we're real people. That's what happens. You know how I recently t told you in front of a lot of people that I think you should be in politics?

SPEAKER_03 56:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

I actually just found like a really interesting middle ground for that.

SPEAKER_03 56:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

What about I mean, maybe you've thought of this before, but what about working like getting elected at a guild or getting elected at one of these, you know.

SPEAKER_05 56:44

So I do a lot of stuff with the guilds. I do a lot of stuff with the director's guild. I'm on a bunch of the also the diversity committees over there. Um because my background's more diverse than people realize.

SPEAKER_01 56:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 56:54

I don't know how to not be of service. Like we're building some charities, we're we we have stuff that we're doing. There's a service component to my life that will never stop. I do think that I really want to do several of these projects, partially because I do think every one of them does have a service component connected to them and an interactive component that most people are not doing in media, because like you and like our conversations have led, I don't look at it the same way that most people do. It's like I'm not just trying to get a job so I can stand in the spotlight and get paid well, right? I'm looking at it as a I have a voice. There are things that I want to share that are in the world, and there's an impact I want to make, and I want to lift other people.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

Well, couldn't you find that at the guild at a guild? Because I know the president of the casting guild, casting association of America, and I think maybe outside of America. And it seems to me like most people don't know her name. No. It seems to me that she's doing a lot of that work behind the scenes, kind of the heavy lifting behind the scenes. She's getting to, you know, she has a glitz and glamour once a year at an award show, but it's really just doing the work. And then she also still has her job. Like her is it's just something that she does. So I don't know. It just it's f it feels like it would wear well on you.

SPEAKER_05 58:12

You know you have pushed and led and guided me, which is okay. I want to, before we go too far from it.

SPEAKER_01 58:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 58:20

I want your three words. Oh. What are three words that describe Arlen?

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Ooh, I don't know. Let's see. Three words. Is it that describe me or that I want people to think of? Probably the adjectives.

SPEAKER_05 58:32

Like, what are your three adjectives?

SPEAKER_00 58:33

Well, the first one is kind of surprising me that it came to me first, but it's powerful.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:38

And I don't mean like like you said at uh the last time I saw you, because I I watched a video playback recently. You said that authority didn't have to be authoritarian, basically. That's how you put it. So I don't mean powerful, like, ooh, I can I can run a rough shot. It just means like for so long I didn't feel powerful. I felt very powerless that everything was happening around me and to me. And I feel powerful. I feel like my words have weight to some people, and I feel like um what I what I do it is is moving things along in a way that I want it to. So I would say powerful giving. That's my version of kind. Because I'll still cuss somebody out, so I don't know how kind I am.

SPEAKER_05 59:28

I tell people all the time, kind is a choice. Yeah. I choose to be kind.

SPEAKER_00 59:32

Nice is not.

SPEAKER_05 59:33

Please do not assume that that is a weakness or like that it's just a random adjective. Like kindness is a choice in an active participant, but yes, I like giving.

SPEAKER_00 59:41

I'll say giving just because I am. I'm I'm very like, I like to give people things and information and tools. Um, and then I think what most people don't know about me is that I I can be funny. I think you're hilarious. I think I I can't be I at least I, you know, I make certain people laugh.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:04

You have a great subtle sense of humor where you drop little lines and you tie things together in a beautiful way that I don't think like the world if they listen to you, they know. People in your inner circle, yeah, they know.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

They know. Do you have you ever done improv?

SPEAKER_05 1:00:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:23

Do you like it? I love it. I've thought about doing I have no Oh, you should totally do it. I've thought about doing improv because I cannot remember two words back to back to do a script, but I think I could do improv.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:34

It's the so I spent when I was just a dad and I couldn't get representation.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:42

For like three years. Two or three nights a week, I went and performed improv. Oh, really? I took every level. I would go and I would wait, I'd put my kids to bed, and then I would go do like late shows and like and I would go, I still now will go drop into it like an open house kind of thing where it's it's random players.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:02

Jump up there.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:03

Like Sunday nights, there's interesting. There's a place not far from here, and I literally will just show up and go in and like I have no idea what I'm gonna work with, I have no idea what level anybody is, and I think that's the greatest thing ever because I have no idea what's coming. The only thing is like, if you're too overtly political for me, I'm like, I'm not gonna come save you on that. Like, like you can live that one out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But other than that, everybody else, though, like the rule it's yes and, right? In improv, which is yes, whatever it is, and whatever. And the thing you're not supposed to do is force people into being something. But everybody's ever played with me, I always tell people, like, yeah, make me whatever you want. Make me the dog, make me the dolphin, like give me, because I might not always pick that crazy thing, yeah, but I am all in on the crazy thing. So I'm like, tell me what the game is.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:56

Yeah, Anna has done improv in two different companies, um, you know, lower level, just to have it in her arsenal of for acting and writing.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

And um, I've seen her at these the final, you know, presentations, and I've always thought, uh, I think I could do it because I'm I like I'm silly. And I'm silly because when I was growing up, I had to be so serious.

unknown 1:02:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

I had to be such a parent and such a wild time. And so now I'm just like, I'll just make you know, some things are just really funny to me. Like, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:33

I want you to touch on that for a second, and I want to share me too.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:37

Is I am so ridiculously silly, particularly with my children and loved ones.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:43

My childlike wonder I've held on to partially because I had to be so serious and responsible so early.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:49

That's the word responsible. And you told me about that. Like you you were often sent to the front lines when there was controversy and stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:57

Yeah, I was I was the I was eight years old, sent out to the world to try and save a show that was doing a fight back against the national anthem pushback and boycotts.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:07

It's insane. It's they're like, send the cute kid in, he'll help it.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:11

Listen, that was what I was told in the thing was like, look, they can only be so mean to the cute kid for so long, and then they start to look like bullies. And I'm like, at what point do I have to endure this before I say this is probably not a good idea?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:24

Yeah, but responsible for sure. I I know this is a different topic than that, but I just started having flashbacks of all these episodes of you. Do you still talk to uh uh members of the cast? You talk to uh Sarah Gilbert? I saw her one time a few weeks ago at an Angel City game.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:41

I I talked to John a lot. John's the one I that I text with the most.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:45

Oh, that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:46

Is and we argue over sports since you mentioned Angel City. Yeah. So we constantly are doing that.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:57

Tell me about your authority playbook. Yeah. Before before I I don't want to.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

No, we keep veering because we're just catching up.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:04

No, because I love uh listen, I love talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

Yeah. Um, so the authority playbook really is what it sounds like. It's like step by step. It first explains to you what authority is and why it's important, and then it tells you some very specific ways that you can not only build authority because you kind of already are just naturally, but you can start to get that shown to more people. So this basic pillars of it have to do with content, specifically YouTube, which is why I'm so excited about it. Has to do with AI, pieces of it, and I call it practical AI. It's not just ever like if you try to keep up with all the AI that is out there, you just lose your mind. Like every day there's a new version of something being released, and it's like not trying to do that. Trying to figure out what works for me, what are the two or three uh tools that I can use and just get better and better and better at that give me leverage, and that's what this is all about. All of this is about leverage. So then there is sales, like having the skill to sell, and it doesn't have to be like when you think of sales, you think of like, hey, how do I get you in this car? You know, it's more like conversations, like understanding that almost every interaction is uh a sale, like it's sales, it's negotiation. And if you can get in a conversation with someone, you can sell them. And if you believe in what you have to offer, then selling is not hard. So all of that's connected, and then that final big major piece is uh building community community, and it is about um it's kind of like the thing that ties it all together in that AI world where everything is automated, everything can be done at a snap of a finger, and everything is hard to understand if somebody wrote it or somebody else or a machine did it. You can't really yet, I'm sure you will be one day, able to replicate being in a room with 50 people like we were. A week ago where it's just like human to human having conversation and building that over time. It breaks down your path and the goal, the end goal for you. And it helps you, it asks questions to help you kind of surface what's most important to you. And then how do we get that out into to so that more people can see it? You don't have to be like have a bunch, like a huge audience or anything like that. You can just have a few people who care about what you have to say and you can make a living from that.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:31

I think it's beautiful. I came to your event.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:34

And and you do these events where people come together. I was so touched by how many people found themselves at a point where they either had started to feel a little lost or had almost given up on the dream, right? Yeah. And then they met you and got some encouragement and some guidance and kind of got a playbook.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:58

And now they're building things that are gonna impact lots of other people. Because almost every one of them had a beautiful mission. Not like not it's not like not that any there's anything against like selling mugs, right? Yeah, yeah. But they were wanting to do things to heal people and and advance people, or you know, one of the people was doing like therapy kind of sessions and journals with people that were having tremendous.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:23

Chan Lee, Rage on the Page.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:24

Yeah, rage on the page.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:26

I can I tell you a couple of examples of what I mean by kind of combining what you're saying and what I'm saying about making money. So that's just been one week since that event got wrapped up. And in that week, Chan Lee, who you're describing, who has something called Rage on the Page, where you you get your feelings out in a like a live cohort of journaling, she went from not knowing exactly how she was gonna like sell all of the seats for that, which cost about $500 each, to like now she's sold out of her first cohort from that one week working with what like the programming that I did have. And then there's another woman named Daisy who I just interviewed, who a week ago was having very similar problem and the same price point, which is kind of ironic, but the same price point. It was like $500. She was trying to sell this other thing. It was something that she liked, but it was just like not really working. And we worked together, and I I have different tools and everything, and we worked together, and she sent me a text this morning and said, I've made six thousand dollars in a week.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:32

It's all incredible.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:33

And so I I guess I get on the Zoom right now. We're gonna talk and see that we can help other people do this.

unknown 1:08:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:38

And Chen Li is about like you're feeling stuck, you are angry, you're upset because something happened to you. This is how you get healing. And Daisy's is for veterans and women who worked in government who want to get into real estate and have like a more like freedom.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

So they're all these different things that are so, in my opinion, so um they're making the world a better place, yeah, while also making a living.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:04

Yeah. And I think that's if we can get more people into that space because it's so much more fulfilling.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:12

You are empowering people to empower others.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:14

Yeah. And I think if you look at it, like I still believe it is criminal how little venture funding we get. But if you look at like um it's almost like a major blockbuster movie versus indie, you can find something great in either.

unknown 1:09:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:32

So yeah, they're gonna be the companies that need the five, ten, twenty million dollar investment to go out there and make something for the world. But there are also people like Daisy and Chan Lee who are just putting together 12 or so people and helping them in this moment, and they're making an impact too. And I just love working with both types of companies.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:51

Okay, now I have a question that's kind of off the board.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:53

Okay, I love it.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:54

When I when I sit across from you, I can't help but get like excited and motivated and like want to ask you things.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:59

What's the question that people don't ask you that you wish they did?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:03

Oh. Um, are you would you would you like to take a nap? Are you tired? Um I want people to feel free to ask me things that will help them personally. You know? Like I I I want people I I don't have a specific question that I'm like, oh, I wish I get to talk about that. I really don't. Um I mean I guess I I guess maybe if we're being general hospital, you have any general hospital questions? Because I love general hospital.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:30

We're gonna have to find we're gonna have to get you over there.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:33

I've been so I've been on set.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:35

Um, I've asked Laura Wright, who plays Carly, if she would slap me. She has said insurance does not allow.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:42

Whatever. Don't know if that's true or not. Uh, but she was lovely. And um I don't even, you know, for years, maybe for 20 years, I've been watching for 30 years. So maybe for 20 of those years, I've wanted to be on it. Like, put me in. You know, Stephen Smith can do it, I certainly can do it. Put me in. But now I don't even need that. All I want, and hear me well.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:05

Yeah, I'm on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:06

All I want is for somebody to page Dr. Arlen Hamilton at General Hospital. Just page them or hand somebody something and say, can you give this to Dr. Arlen Hamilton? That's all I want.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:20

Five days a week. I'm gonna make I'm gonna make this my mission. Okay, okay. See, I believe people should get their dreams. Yes. This is this is one of the things about me you know, which is like I am like, okay, what's your dream? Yeah. And then I'm like, okay, now I'm now I'm on a mission.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:33

Yeah. I mean, you like uh Chandra Wilson from Gray's Anatomy got to be on it. Yvette was on it. Did you know that? Yvette was on it, which was a beautiful. I don't know if you know this, but her friend and and someone that I loved on the show, um, I believe her name was Eddie. She passed away, uh, unfortunately, after uh what was supposed to be a routine surgery. And um, she played a woman named Epiphany Johnson on the show, the nurse, head nurse. And they had a tribute show. And Yvette played someone who kind of saw her in her last hours and everything because that was really her friend. And I thought that was really, really special. Uh, but I don't like you have to be kind of like famous to be on the show. I don't need to be on the show. Now, I've I've changed my mind. All I want is that paging, doctor. It's a hospital, they're always at the hospital.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:24

Right. Take this to Dr. Arlen Hamilton. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:28

All right, okay. Mission mission accepted. Okay. Because listen, I am about people getting what they really want. Okay. Especially beautiful people who put beautiful things in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:39

Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you? Is there any question that you don't get asked?

SPEAKER_05 1:12:42

Listen, keep giving me wisdom and keep pushing me to put more things in the world. Help me, help me get to the point where I am financially stable enough that I can continue to do all the kind things I want to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:54

I I have plenty of projects that I gotta figure out. But see, this is the thing, and you know this about me. I don't ask people. Yeah, I provide them an opportunity to help or be part of something. I'm here with hands that lift and and are open, not to take, but to build together and grow. Right. And I think that's to me, that's the style of what I want to do. It makes me very curious. What is the legacy you want your loved ones to take from your life?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:25

My loved ones.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:26

Yeah, because you have such a beautiful group of people.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:28

I want to remind everybody that I'm worth more alive than not.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:33

I want to get to that point. Because right now, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

I'm like, I'm looking at some little grenades in my will. I'm worth more alive. Because the way you said it was like the legacy that they get to live with. Um fair enough. I just do everything that I can for my people, you know. I just I just want them to be happy. And I remember it took my I took my family to Europe a couple of years ago, and my I went on this crazy adventure uh in Sweden, and my you can only take one person. And I took my brother because everybody was in town. It took Rook, yeah. So he everybody's in town, and we're walking, literally walking through a Swedish forest, and there's a woman playing the harp in the forest, and it's like you have to, it was for um the people who do Spotify.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:22

So it was like what it was like this thing called Brilliant Minds, which is like, you know, only 200 people get invited to it a year. It's it was really crazy. So we're walking through the woods, and there's like these people who are on stilts, and this is all this crazy stuff. And my and my brother and I were walking through it, and I just realized I turned to him and I just realized most of his friends, not all of them, but most of his friends from high school or junior high, I should say, um are either dead or in jail.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:54

And I got this boy out here in the forest.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:00

Going on this wild trip, do whatever you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

And there was like paintball, and there's all kinds of stuff, and I was just seeing him smile and laugh, and I that it's like that pic, like that same trip, he went jet skiing for the first time in the south of France. I know this all sounds whatever, but it was. And now he has a jet ski at home because he lives by the lake.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:20

And it was like he just needed to experience it and understand, oh, that's for me. It's not for somebody else, it's for me and my family. So now he's like, you know, it he's the he's the American, you know, dream story. And it's not like we're all we're not all rolling in it because a lot of that compounded interest that we talked about happens over the next five years or so. Um and when it does, it'll be pretty significant. But we're right now it's just like we get it, we invested into what we're doing, we have a little fun, we keep going.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:52

Um so I just I don't know if there's like a big legacy that I want to leave. I want them to be as happy as they can be for as long as they can be. That's it.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:04

This is something that I think you guys do beautifully that I want the world to take, which is You said something that is so powerful, which is you guys build, you invest, but then you go play and you play together, right? Yeah. Because so many people wait their whole life to take the trip, or their whole life to do something fun. And it doesn't necessarily have to be it didn't start out going to Europe, right? It didn't start out jet skiing somewhere, right? Yeah. It started out with little trips.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:36

You know, we met twenty something years ago when you were doing the interview at That's right, and I didn't even know it until I knew it. Yeah, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:47

So, like so for the world. Arlen was working with a pretty major comedian. You were working with Margaret Chow.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:55

So yeah, so I had a an indie magazine back in the day that I because I'm always an entrepreneur. So I had this totally broke, but I had this indie magazine, and on our cover was Margaret Cho for that for that um version for that edition. And I always I wanted people to interview each other because I was kind of bit off of the interview magazine that was out, used to be out. And so I wanted a comed a big comedian to interview, a big comedian.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:22

So I was like, let's see if I can get Roseanne. And for some reason it was working out. It was it worked.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:28

You guys came to the studio in El Segundo.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:31

And I was the guy they called when they needed somebody to make things work that they didn't know how they were gonna get done.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:37

Yeah, because there was a whole studio built. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:39

And so I came in as the tech guy. Yeah. And we met in passing or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:44

So then when we ran back into each other, I was like, no, no, I was the tech that day with Margaret Cho. Like, but that's part of it is you meet the people you're supposed to meet by just doing the things you're supposed to do. And the reason you and I got along all those years later is because we treated each other well.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:04

When no one was looking at each other.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:06

And we probably were very broke together during that time. Yes. Like we barely got there. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:10

Yeah. And but not judging each other for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:13

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:14

And I think that's there's also a like a message in that that I hope the world realizes like meet the people where they are.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:24

And then don't be afraid to listen to help them grow. Thank you for coming on a lighthouse in the dark.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:31

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:32

I'm gonna have to come you back again because there will be another book. There will be more ways that you're helping. You will have lifted more and more people. But I love your wisdom and your heart.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:42

Thank you. I appreciate it. I think anybody who's interested in this, of course, there's the book. But go to go to my YouTube for free. It's uh if you go to it's about damn time.com, that takes you right to the YouTube channel. And you can just watch, I have like 700 videos where I teach you about entrepreneurship very practically and something that you can start now.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:03

Yeah, and I think every single person can benefit from them. And I normally ask people like, what is the light you want to put or the guide that you want to put out into the world, but you're doing it every day, and that's exactly it. People should go to your YouTube and connect and learn and then empower themselves. Thank you, Arthur.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:22

Thank you.