My friend Mike Maples Jr. is one of the most respected venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, and when I asked him how he became who he is, he told me about the day he disappointed his father. He was about twelve, running a small business that was doing well, and he came home excited to announce that he was going to sell it to Disney. His father was not impressed. In their house, he said, they did not raise children to sell their companies to Disney. They raised children to buy Disney.

That story is the heart of this week’s episode. Success is intentional, and so is failure. You can be handed a fortune and still go broke if nothing changes in your mind and in your spirit, because being broke is economic while being poor is a disabling frame of mind. I walk through the five pillars of success from my book Up from Nothing, and the three mindsets I see everywhere: surviving, thriving and building.

I also share why Operation HOPE, through HOPE Ventures, made its first direct investment in a young company, the Black Coffee Company here in Atlanta. Five founders, no ego games, no crabs in a barrel. That kind of stability is rarer than a great product, and it compounds just like interest does. You will hear about a restaurant encounter that taught me more about entitlement than any textbook could.

I close with a mother’s question about how to get her two daughters started investing. My answer has less to do with any particular fund and more to do with who sits at the table with them. Listen with your family, and talk about it afterward.

🎧 Listen now — wherever you get your podcasts, or simply click below.

Prefer to watch? The full episode is on YouTube.