“…and you do have to be prepared for that. And being an entrepreneur, it is isolating. And it's isolating because the higher you climb, the less likely you will have people with you by your side. Not everybody is in for the journey. Not everybody is prepared. And you have to be willing to continue to climb up that ladder by yourself.” -- Samara Rivers

----------------------

ROB RICHARDSON
Welcome to Disruption Now. I’m Rob Richardson.

JAMES KEYS
I’m James Keys.

ROB
It's an honor to have Samara Rivers. Samara Rivers is the founder and CEO of the Black Bourbon Society. This was started in order to connect more African-Americans to the industry -- to whiskey, to bourbon -- because you know what, lots of African-Americans drink bourbon. But you wouldn't know that through the marketing because most of the time, marketing doesn't pay attention to African-Americans. She saw that need.

Her love of bourbon and need to connect people got her involved in this process and now she has a group on Facebook that's over 7,000 large. She has her own podcast that she is in partnership with her partner in life. It's called “Bonded in Bourbon.” -- I got to hear how that story happened.

We're going to get a chance to learn her experience, learn her journey and most of all, we get to learn a lot about bourbon. So if you like bourbon and you want to hear more about bourbon, stick around and listen to the rest of the podcast. -- Well good to see you, Samara. I appreciate having you on the show. It's an honor.

SAMARA RIVERS
Yey!

ROB
Yeah. You said you'd get your AKL look going on. I understand. I’m a Kappa.

SAMARA
Oh. Well I just saw an opportunity to be branded so I put on my BBS.

ROB
Oh no. That’s awesome. I love that. “Black Bourbon Society,” right? That’s what the B… That’s awesome.

SAMARA
Yeah.

ROB
There you go. If she needs anymore trademark, she has to talk to you, James.

JAMES
Yeah, there you go.

ROB
He’s a trademark and patent attorney.

SAMARA
I wish I would have known that. We finally are in the gazette…

JAMES
Oh okay.

SAMARA
…so like we’re in the last stages of being trademarked.

JAMES
Yeah, it sounds like publication so that's good.

SAMARA
Yeah. I started it last August and didn't know what I was doing. The person who was reviewing my case just finally called me and told me what to do.

JAMES
That's good. That’s good.

ROB
That’s good. Sometimes, to find your way through it is the only thing you can do. It’s a good place to start. A read in an interview that you said when you first started doing this -- the CEO of the Black Bourbon Society -- when you first started your business venture here, you really had no idea. You were like walking in the dark.

I think a lot of people get paralyzed and never really take that first step because they could just go through all of the mental, “I got to do this. I got to do that. I got to do this.” How did you just go out there and just take that leap of faith? And what do you advise others to do just to get out there and do it?

SAMARA
You know, you're not going to have all the answers. I think, sometimes, we often over-prepare ourselves thinking we have to know all of the answers, we have to have this well-written plan already done, but it actually stifles our growth. Just get out there and start doing something even if you're crawling at a snail's pace. You just have to keep moving because that idea can get lost in the big picture of all the details of what you want to do.

When I started Black Bourbon Society, I had just started drinking whiskey. I was like two years in just on my own personal whiskey journey. I wasn't a collector. I didn't have any sales or background experience in the industry. I came to it fresh. I just had an idea and I was passionate about it and I wanted to tell as many people about my passion as possible. I learned as I grew the business.

And in a way, especially as I grew the following for Black Bourbon Society, my members taught me about whiskey. They were way more advanced. But they also appreciated that about me because I didn't come to them as a know-it-all. I didn't come to them as this expert so they really felt they connected with me on a personal level, and they've been supporters ever since.

ROB
When you talked about it -- it was another interview -- you talked about some of the challenges you had. I think this one interview I was referencing, it was focused towards women. The question you were asked… I could be paraphrasing but it was along these lines: They asked you what challenges did you have being a woman and what I believe you said, it wasn't being a woman that was the biggest challenge. It was being a person of color. That was the biggest challenge.

SAMARA
Yeah.

ROB
Talk more about that and what that’s been like.

SAMARA
In this industry, it's whiskey, right?

ROB
Yeah.

SAMARA
Whiskey primarily comes at 51%... or around that amount of whiskey comes out of the state of Kentucky. Just think about the demographics of Kentucky. You can already tell--

ROB
Yeah. It's right down the street from me. I can throw a rock to Kentucky. I know it well.

SAMARA
Exactly. This is very much still the highest demographic for bourbon consumers. The whiskey industry is middle-aged white men and the bourbon producers are old white men and they've been producing this in their families for generations. Some of them are still white but they are popping up on the scene.

So yeah, they've never seen somebody who looks like me interested in their product and so bold and so determined and eager and passionate about this. It's interesting. They've all been welcoming to me but there's nobody else who looks like me in the room.

ROB
Right, which presents opportunities that are obviously challenges.

SAMARA
Yeah.

ROB
So what specific challenge… Let's dig a little more into that. You don't have to say the exact person but think of a story or someone you encountered that you were a little bit taken aback. There had to be something… I mean I’m making an assumption here but for you to say that, some stories are there.

SAMARA
You know, it's interesting. Again, it's not that I haven't encountered racism or being excluded, it's just that for me… -- Let me just back up.

I went to an HBCU. I’m from black LA. I’m from LA but I’m from like the black part of LA. So for me, all of my friends… My world is actually black. This is the first time in my life that I’ve actually had white friends and it was stepping out of my comfort zone for that.

Again, I came to the industry very honest and very open and I feel like the industry met me with that. We didn't really have a lot of pushback as like, “No, we don't want to work with you because you don't look like us.”

It should feel that isolating feeling. I know that we all feel it, as African-Americans, of what it feels like to be the only in the room.

ROB
Yep.

SAMARA
You know?

JAMES
Mm-hmm.

SAMARA
You wished you had a buddy to look over and kind of give that look and they knew exactly what that look meant.

ROB
Yep, I know the look. All three of us know that look.

SAMARA
You know what I mean?

ROB
It’s [inaudible - 07:17]. Yeah, you know what they’re talking about.

SAMARA
You know, you wished you could walk down the hallway and kind of give the nod, like, “Yes, I see you” and they… you know, and that just doesn't exist in this world. So it was challenging on both parts -- for the industry -- I guess they welcomed me. They were open to my ideas -- but also for myself. It tested who I was.

ROB
Right.

SAMARA
Going back to the role of a woman and what it's like to break barriers and to do things that… There’s no blueprint before. You can easily get intimidated by being bold and aggressive and being the first to do something. But as an entrepreneur, as someone who is always the first, you have to have this inner confidence to just do it anyway. You can't be scared.

ROB
No. I wonder if your experience from going to a Black college had any part in that. I want to let James come in because you guys both have that in common. He went to Howard. I don't know where you went.

SAMARA
I was at FAMU. I went to--

JAMES
FAMU, okay. FAMU. Nice. Nice.

SAMARA
Howard is okay.

SAMARA
The Mecca. But no, I had a lot of love for FAMU. That's good.
Well I imagine that as a 10-year old, 15-year-old, even 18-year-old, you don't imagine yourself growing up to be the head of the Black Bourbon Society. So through your journey growing up, what did you want to be when you started and then how did that evolve?

Let me say I really admire what you said initially, saying you have an idea, you should go for it because that's how you sometimes just succeed. Sometimes you fail but even your failures can lead to other opportunities.

SAMARA
Oh yeah.

JAMES
So starting with what you initially wanted to be and then your evolution to where you are now, how did that go, basically?

SAMARA
I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. When I started at FAMU, I did start off in their business program in SBI. In the brochures… I’ll go back all the way to ‘98 when I was looking at the brochures, trying to figure out what school I wanted to go to. I remember them saying, “We have this five-year MBA program” and they had an entrepreneurial track and all of that.

Got to FAMU, my freshman year, was taking all the business courses and quickly realized that the program was really geared more towards corporate America. Honestly, I was disappointed because I knew, from a very young age, I never wanted to work for somebody else and that's just because I come from a lineage of entrepreneurs.

JAMES
I believe I saw four generations.

SAMARA
Yeah, four generations on both sides of my family. And they were all men, surprisingly. I’m the only woman who had started my own business. I guess it skipped my brother and it went to me.

ROB
You got the gene. They came in. You got the bug.

SAMARA
I got the bug from a very young age. So I always knew it. Like, “Okay. Fine.” And I dropped out to be honest. After I realized the program was more geared towards corporate America, I quit. I left the program.

I got a fine arts degree. I went from business to art which was my true passion at that time. I saw myself as being a curator, as just being creative, being someone who always was into art. I was just like, “Okay. Fine. If I can't get a degree in business, I’m going to get a degree in something that I am passionate about.”

I ended up getting a fine arts degree and then went over to Florida State and got an art history degree and a masters in arts administration. So I did not know that I would end up in the whiskey business at all.

There had been moments, like when you look back at the patterns of your life, I remember my freshman year, and even before I went to college, I used to collect… Do you guys remember Absolut vodka…

ROB
Yep.

JAMES
Mm-hmm.

SAMARA
…and they [used to have the - 11:25] advertising but really cool advertising? They had like “Absolut California” and it was like the Absolut bottle in a shape of a pool with palm trees, [palm climate - 11:33]. They had a whole campaign. Well I used to collect those ads in magazines. I actually would line my walls like a wallpaper with all of the advertisements that came out of the Absolut marketing wheelhouse.

ROB
Wow.

SAMARA
At that point, I was into visuals and really paying attention to how spirits were being marketed to people. I kind of had this natural inclination for marketing, for art, and how it impacts people. So I did that.

I remember my roommate got concerns. She thought I had an alcohol problem or whatever. [Laughter] You know what I mean? But it wasn’t necessarily that I liked Absolut. I never even drank it. But I really loved the artistry that went behind the product.

ROB
I drank Absolute so good for you. [Laughter]

SAMARA
Is that so? So those things kept happening.

I worked in the museums for a little bit. I always had my business on the side which was event planning -- you know, producing events for other people. So that's how I kind of came to this industry. Like, yes, I like whiskey and I know how to plan events. That's how BBS got started.

I was subcontracting with a brand in Oakland who their brand rep was new to the area and she didn't know venues -- no restaurants, no bars to partner with to do activations for her audience… for her customers.

The subcontractor contracted her work to me, like planning all of her events. And I asked her. I said, “Okay, well, I want to make sure that I’m meeting your target audience. What are your directives?”

And she didn't have time for me. She was waiting for the cable guy to come fix her cable. She had moved from New Jersey. She was like, “Oh I don't have time to deal with this,” and she just forwarded me over her marketing deck from her brand. So she gave me proprietary information. And when I saw the deck, I realized that there was no direct consumer marketing targeting African-Americans especially outside of the urban demographic. That's when I created BBS.

ROB
Right.

JAMES
Nice.

ROB
That’s beautiful.

SAMARA
So literally, the stars just kind of aligned and fell into place.

JAMES
And there's a real lesson in your journey in the sense that once you realized that the School of Business wasn't taking you in the direction that you were excited about and that was really for you, you didn't just leave. You found something that did interest you and put your energy into that and developing those skills of identifying something you like and then jumping on the opportunity and then sticking with it.

SAMARA
Yeah.

JAMES
I see the parallel. Later on, when you're doing something and then an opportunity hits, you're prepared for it because of the work you had done up until that point. And then you jumped on it because--

You know, you don't know when opportunity knocks but you're ready to answer. So that's really nice to hear and that's something that… It's a story, I think, that a lot of young people -- people of all ages -- should remember as they go through their journey.

SAMARA
Yeah. It's not going to be perfect. No journey is perfect. You can't prep for it. But some kind of way, you just have to be resilient and you just have to ride with it.

ROB
I want to take a little more in that direction. Often, when people make these type of leaps, something goes wrong. As you said, you have planned A, B and C. All of a sudden, A, B and C is off the table, payroll doesn't come in… Something happens.

Think about a time you failed in your life -- I failed a lot. I’ll give you some if you’d like to hear some of my failures -- and how that helped you learn to become a better business person, a better person. Those are type of examples I like to hear because people need to know that, yeah, sometimes the process is fun. Most of the time, it's not linear. It's a hard process. You have setbacks. You have obstacles that you didn't foresee. I believe people need to know that when they're going through these things like, “Oh you had these obstacles, too. Samara had these obstacles, too, and so did I.”

JAMES
Let me just add on. Particularly in this day and age, all people see on Instagram or Facebook is people’s success. So it works your mind on, “Oh everybody around me is just ballin out” or “Everybody around me is doing what they love.” But when people are going through struggles, oftentimes, just--

ROB
Nobody posts that. That's not on Instagram. “Look at me. I’m struggling.”

SAMARA
It’s not glamorous.

JAMES
Exactly. I just wanted to add that context to the question.

SAMARA
For me, some of the failures that I’ve had or some of the not-so-successful moments… “Failure” is such a harsh word. I don’t want to use that.

ROB
Well at least temporary anyway. That's how I look at it.

SAMARA
You know what? Instead of “failures,” let's call them this… and this is something I learned from my daughter's chess teacher. Let's call them “Setbacks” because… And this is a quote that had stayed with me from that program that my daughter was in. “Setbacks are setups for a comeback.”

JAMES
Mm-hmm.

ROB
Yep.

SAMARA
I look at failure as like, “Oh that's it. You messed up. You're done.” But a setback, which is what we all experience, so am I, often helps us especially with maturity. And you can really take the time to figure out why you landed in that setback. You can use that as a way to navigate your life and get back to your comeback. So no more failures.

ROB
Okay. So give me your setback. Tell me one.

SAMARA
So setbacks… Yeah, I can identify what setbacks. You know, everything is trial and error for me. My first year, when we planned events, when we produced our trip to Louisville for the first time, everything was big and grandiose in my head. And remember, I have an event planner background so I think very lavishly and very big and on a very high scale. But the reality is you don't have much of a budget. You're limited in your resources and people still don't know about you.

There were several moments when I produced events and just begged people to show up just so I could have somebody in the room. I underpriced myself and didn't make any money, ended up going in the red.

Even with my first trip to Louisville, we had these grandiose idea, “Oh we're going to throw this trip to Louisville. 40 people are going to join us. They're going to pay. They're going to have this amazing experience” and only 10 people show up. And I go into the whole thousands of dollars.

That is a total setback and if you're not mentally prepared for that, it can be your failure. It can shut you down. It can make you want to quit. But there's always something about doing that post-analysis and really looking at, “Okay, how can we have done this better? How could we have done the vision that I wanted to do within the budget that we had set?”

ROB
Right.

SAMARA
You know, it took me a long time to realize this, to be honest, especially that first year and a half of doing events across the country. I didn't even have my budget right as far as how much profit I was making off of my events because I wasn't even including my travel.

I’m like, “Okay, this event was successful. We made money but why am I still broke? Why don't we have any funds?” “Oh I’m flying from LA. It’s a $500 flight and I stayed in Chicago for three days and we ate at a steakhouse.” I was just like throwing events for free trips. You know, it happens [a lot - 19:45]. That’s why we weren't financially successful.

So it was really taking a hard look and saying, “Okay, we're not going to grow. I can't make this my career. I can't make this my life if I can't get my budget together; if I don't understand how I’m spending money and building formulas to make sure that even if I am spending the money that there's still a revenue on it on the back end.”

So again, going back to the first trip that we did, it was a bad partnership that I did with a travel company. I won't say that it was bad. I will say that it wasn't a fair partnership that I did with that travel company so I lost revenue just off top with the partnership agreement.

ROB
That sounds pretty bad.

SAMARA
Yeah.

ROB
Losing money is not fun.

SAMARA
Well you know what we ended up doing, is we went back to that same company and we said, “Look, I want to change the terms of agreements. I want to be able to use you for this but not for that.” I took on more the lion's share of that but that also meant I got to keep 90% of my profits instead of--

ROB
Oh that's good. So you worked out a better deal with them.

SAMARA
Yeah, so I worked out a better deal. And instead of having 10 people from the first year, we had 35. I made more money off of that better than I did in all of 2017.

ROB
That's interesting. Tim Ferriss talks about the way to build a large audience is by going small. It sounds like you're trying to be really specific about who is in your audience. How do you use Facebook? It looks like Facebook was your initial kind of platform.
SAMARA
Yeah.

ROB
How do you use that in order to help with your marketing and what advice do you give to entrepreneurs when it comes to using Facebook or social media in their expansion or their tactics?

SAMARA
I will say we built Black Bourbon Society solely off social media. We just found a way to monetize everything off of social media. The rules of Facebook constantly change which makes it challenging. And we've done so well at--

Facebook invited me and other group admins who have done the same thing across the world. They all invited us to their headquarters earlier this year and taught us all this great stuff. And then two months later, they changed the algorithm. So none of it… It was all [inaudible - 22:11].

ROB
Oh wow.

SAMARA
You know what? It constantly changes with the best technology.

ROB
But like you said it used to be… because people ask me about this all the time. “Well don't you have to just post all the time?”

SAMARA
No.

ROB
No. That worked like 15 years ago.

SAMARA
Yeah.
ROB
Posting all the time does not get you more recognition. It doesn't work. They changed it.

SAMARA
It doesn’t. You've got to use colorful language that doesn't trigger their algorithms. And they're constantly sharpening and changing the triggers with their algorithms so it is extremely frustrating.

ROB
So you got to use like, “Well I didn't know this so…” Hey, wait. Educate us a little bit here. [Laughter] So what type of language triggers that? It triggers and then they don't share your stuff? Is this what you're saying to me?

SAMARA
Yeah. Well it pushes it down the timeline. It doesn't pop up immediately. Like if you say the word “Event,” if you type out the word “Event” then it… I mean I can make some vulnerable post on my personal page about Father's Day and get 400 likes. The moment I say, “Hey guys, I’m going to Louisville to do an event,“ I get two likes.

ROB
Oh well, that's what happen… You're helping me. I’m like, “Why am I getting…” Okay. Thank you.

SAMARA
Yeah. So there's a whole thing… So it's like they're going more for personal stories and Facebook wants you to pour your soul out on their time.

ROB
Yeah, so they get more information about you. And you got to pay for it if you want to be in business. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

SAMARA
You’re absolutely right. It’s more about [you need to - 23:36] play. You’re exactly right. So you've got to be very creative.

But with that being said, we were still able to build our group. We still, just in the past six weeks, have gained over 2,000 members in Black Bourbon Society and that's really because… It's word-of-mouth.

I started off with my family. I started off with my friends that I went to college with. They forwarded and shared it and invited their friends and tagged their friends and more people joined our group. They say, “Oh I know people who like bourbon as well. They need to know about this group” then they invite them to the group.

For the most part, all of our growth is organic and it's all just from one person really believing in the mission and inviting 200 of their friends. And then they all liked the mission and then they invite 200 of their friends.

ROB
Yeah, this is being organic and building businesses. Actually, African-Americans have been doing this for a long time. I like to think we've gotten away from a lot of our roots.

I want to kind of change direction a little bit. There's really an untold story of Black entrepreneurs in this country. When I looked up some things about your business and about things that were happening at the same time, I saw the information about Nathan Green. I had no idea that an African-American has so much involvement in Jack Daniels, that he actually gave him the recipe and that he was an entrepreneur. We're talking about post right after slavery.

SAMARA
Right.

ROB
But you never hear about this story. Talk about that. I know as an African-American woman that is starting a business… The guy’s name was Nathan Green and he was known as “Uncle Nearest.” And there’s this new product coming out. I’m going to try this bourbon because I like bourbon.

You come from four generations of entrepreneurs. When people think of African-Americans, unfortunately, I think the stereotype is a lot of us aren’t actually entrepreneurs. But we look at the story of Uncle Nearest and you can tell it or I can--

SAMARA
Yeah.

ROB
That is one example of many of the roots of entrepreneurship within the African-American community. Just talk a little bit about that just so listeners can understand the history.

SAMARA
I think all of our ancestors were entrepreneurs in some sort of way. Even if your grandmother or your great-grandmother was washing clothes for Miss Anne down the street, it was her laundry business.

ROB
Yeah. We lost touch of that because after integration, folks were like, “Well white folks’ ice is cooler. I want to go there.” Having been able to go there, “Let me go to that store.” And then they left all of the stuff that you had in your own community to build your own wealth. We had to be entrepreneurs to survive. And I would argue, that is the case right now.

There's a new opportunity within social media and the internet... -- I know James, you had a little anecdote you wanted to talk about.

JAMES
Oh Uncle Nearest. Well I actually learned about the story recently within the past… let's say, a little over nine months. My brother… I passed your information to him once I saw we were doing this. My brother is a big fan of Uncle Nearest and he claims that his consumption of Uncle Nearest -- him and his wife -- their first time having Uncle Nearest led to a bundle of joy nine months ago.

ROB
[Laughter] There you go.

SAMARA
Oh my god.

ROB
There you go. There you go. Uncle Nearest is creating babies out here.

SAMARA
I’ll have to [pick - 27:14] up on that.

JAMES
He told me I can say that. I was like, “Oh I’ll just say “Family members.” He’s like, “No, it’s okay. That’s something we’re proud of.” So Uncle Nearest is still getting it done.

ROB
[Laughter]

SAMARA
So here’s a big thing about Uncle Nearest. The idea of the brand for Uncle Nearest started around the same time that Black Bourbon Society was being created. It was actually created by a woman named Fawn Weaver who is from Los Angeles.

ROB
Okay. You guys are doing big in LA. Black LA is the thing. All right.

SAMARA
You know, Fawn and I and her husband, Keith, we all grew up within like a five-mile radius of each other and never knew about each other until after all of this. Like BBS was created and Uncle Nearest was--

Again, BBS was created in May. I think she launched Uncle Nearest like two months after that in the same [area - 28:14]. So just stars were starting to align the story and the universe just needed to push out and be told.

Uncle Nearest was the original master distiller for Jack Daniels. He was a slave. He was Dan Call’s slave, not Jack Daniels’ slave. Dan Call was a preacher in Lynchburg, Tennessee and Jack Daniels was a young boy who went to Dan Call and said, “Hey, I see your slaves over there making something. I want to know what they're making.”

He kept bugging Dan Call about learning how to make this whiskey or whatever the slaves were making over there and so Dan Call agreed. “Yes, I’ll give you my best -- Uncle Nearest -- and he will teach you how to make whiskey.”

So he was rented by Jack Daniels to… because he was already owned. So this is interesting, right? He was already owned. So he was rented by Jack Daniels to start making whiskey.

After emancipation happened, he was, of course, legally free but continued to work with Jack Daniels in making whiskey. They had actually bonded and created a real friendship. And there are still Nearest grand-descendants that work at the Jack Daniels [distillery - 29:37].

JAMES
Oh wow.

ROB
I didn’t know that. He made a lot of money. He made a lot of money, didn’t he?

SAMARA
Yeah. He was successful. They looked out for his family -- the Motlow’s.

ROB
That’s a good story there. It doesn’t usually end out that way. Usually, the money is taken from you. “Good bye.” You don’t get anything. So that’s good to hear.

SAMARA
Right. You know, we hear so many stories about slavery and emancipation that we automatically think they are all horrid and wrong. But Fawn has done a great amount of research and she has taken a great amount of time to make sure to tell the story accurately.

They did. They ended up becoming friends. Their families ended up becoming friends and they do support each other.

Fawn, of course, takes it to a whole another level and creates this brand in his honor. She's even gone to the point where she's researched all of his descendants even the ones that didn't realize they were descendants of Nearest Green or the importance of being a descendant of Nearest Green. She’s kind of put the family back together from [all parts of the country - 30:34].

Of course, a portion of the proceeds from the bottle sales have gone to the Uncle Nearest… No, it's the Nearest Green Foundation which supports his descendants in going to college and getting--

ROB
Oh wow.

JAMES
Nice.

ROB
That's pretty awesome. That's great. As we were talking about a little bit earlier, black business has declined. It's kind of seen an uptick recently with a lot of ventures like yourself but… How do you think we get our communities back to embracing entrepreneurship? How do we get back into that mindset, collectively, particularly supporting each other, too, because we have to prove that our ice is just as cold as everybody else.

SAMARA
I think it's more of a support thing. I think we all have this idea of wanting to be an entrepreneur but, of course, there's fear. It's kind of been ingrained in us from our parents in the last generation, and I’m going to say, specifically, like my family which might be like yours.

My mom got her degree and worked at the same job for 40 years -- same job, got her retirement, got her pension, had her benefits and she played the rules by the book. And I think that generation wanted us to live that life, too, but we're realizing that in 2019, it's just--

ROB
That life don’t exist, by the way.

SAMARA
Huh?

ROB
That life doesn’t exist anymore.

SAMARA
It doesn’t exist. It doesn’t. First of all, there’s no such thing as a “Pension.”

ROB
No, or loyalty from a company to one company.

SAMARA
Or loyalty from a company. And honestly, if you work for a company more than two to three years, you're looked at as not being ambitious enough in your career [inaudible - 32:27]. So that formula that worked so well for our parents just doesn't exist. However, some of us are willing to break that mold and some are just kind of too conservative and--

JAMES
Risk-averse. It’s a risk aversion…

ROB
Yeah.

JAMES
…of what you see.

SAMARA
Yes, risk-averse and then not willing to get out there.

ROB
You’re taught a lot of wrong things.

SAMARA
Oh yeah.

ROB
You're taught, if you go to school, you work hard, you do that and you finish college then everything is great for you.

SAMARA
The American Dream.

ROB
That’s not true.

SAMARA
Then you get a house, right?

ROB
Yeah, get a house. Go ahead, get mortgage, get in debt.

SAMARA
Right. Find a college sweetheart and marry your college sweetheart, have kids then fine.

ROB
Yeah. That’s a bad… Never mind. I shouldn’t say that. [Laughter]

JAMES
That’s a societal thing that you see though.

SAMARA
All of it was lies.

ROB
It is.

JAMES
It’s a societal thing but it affects African-Americans, I think, a little more severely, oftentimes, because of where they're coming from. So you see like the entrepreneurialship, yeah, the generation prior to ours was definitely more risk-averse but the opportunities they had were more long-term. And then also, to their credit, they were really the first generation that got to plug in at the very beginning of their careers to that system. They created a huge middle class in the ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s.

SAMARA
Right.

JAMES
But times have changed.

ROB
It changed a lot.

JAMES
Times have changed.

SAMARA
So just like we've had to do all this time throughout the decades and throughout the generations, we've had to adjust. And so I really feel like even if you are working your corporate job or even if you are too risk-adverse to just jump in full-throttle. Start a side hustle on the side.

And it really boils down to everybody needs to know how to hunt and not wait for the first and the fifteenth [twirl - 34:12] around for you to be set. You need to be able to know how… If your check doesn't hit… And this happened in DC with the whole government shutdown earlier this year. If your check stops tomorrow, you still need to be able to feed your family the next day.

ROB
Yeah. Reading this great book from Tim Ferriss, you have to allow yourself to not accept the reality that others want to place on you, like “You have to do all these things.” You actually have more free time than you can imagine if you're able just to not accept the reality that others try to force upon you. If you're not willing to take action--

The greatest threat is, honestly, inaction because most people in their lives, by the time they get to be 80, no one says, “My god…” Most people don't say, “I wish I didn't do that.” Most of the time they said, “I wish I would have had the courage to do XYZ.”

SAMARA
Right.

ROB
I tell folks, I don't want to be sitting on my rocking chair saying, “I wish I would have. I wish I would have. I wish I would have.” I wanted to say, “This is what I did and I’m glad I took the risk to actually do it.”

SAMARA
But going back to something that you asked me from the very beginning and that is with women in particular but also with men, how do you know you're ready to get out there and do this and just go for your passion? I feel like we find excuses for ourselves to do that, right?

JAMES
Mm-hmm.

SAMARA
We say, “Oh I’m not ready. I’m not prepared” or “Oh I’m not an expert at that.” So what do we do… And I’m sorry. I’m probably going to go down the rabbit hole with this one.

ROB
No, go ahead. Go down the rabbit hole. We like rabbit holes. This is a podcast. You can go down rabbit holes.

SAMARA
We often say like, “Oh I don’t know how to do that so I’m going to go get a degree” and that puts you in--

JAMES
And take on a bunch of debt.

ROB
Yeah.

SAMARA
Bunch of debt and it pushes you back another two years from actually fulfilling your dreams, and I think we need to get out of that habit. Unless you're becoming a doctor and you're about to do surgery on somebody, yes, you need to know what you're doing. But for you to start a side hustle business, no, you don't have to have an MBA.

ROB
No. Most people don’t.

SAMARA
Right.

JAMES
And the stuff they’re teaching you in the MBA isn't really teaching you how to do that anyway.

SAMARA
Exactly. If you know how to design shirts and you want to start a t-shirt company, you don't have to take a class for that. You just need to go on Facebook. Like, work your network. Hustle yourself. Let it be known what you're doing. But I think we often get in… And that might be something that I would also blame on the generation before us about being over-prepared. You know, you don't have to have it all. Just get started. Don't be afraid to just move and get started.

ROB
So what type of habits do you suggest to get people there? An advice that I’ve heard from some entrepreneurs, they say, “Look, just do something every day that makes you uncomfortable” -- to get used to having uncomfortable conversations; to making yourself uncomfortable. That's one piece of advice that I’ve heard over and over again, to kind of get you into that habit of getting into situations that you're afraid of.

Look, it is natural to be afraid, to be uncomfortable, but it's the people that are willing to be uncomfortable that live the most comfortably.

SAMARA
Right.

ROB
So what advice or habits might you suggest for people that are just still finding themselves in that fear state of saying, “I’m not sure. Maybe that's not me” or “That is for the few that can take that leap”?

SAMARA
I think you have to ask yourself… Well it's something one of the articles I think you referred to earlier. I said, “Get unstuck.” I think you have to challenge yourself. We all have that voice in our head that says, “Oh I can't do that. Oh I’m not ready for that.” I challenge you to ask that same voice by, “Prove me why.” I think we never challenge that inner critic on why. We just believe it and “Oh forget it. I’m not ready” and we just walk away. We accept it. But I challenge people to challenge their inner critic.

ROB
My mother -- I’m going to cuss a little bit -- she used to call it the “Itty-bitty shitty committee.” It’s the voice you’re hearing.

SAMARA
Right.

ROB
The voice you’re hearing in your head will always tell you negative thoughts.

JAMES
That gets you not just at the beginning though. Sometimes, when you have setbacks, that voice will come back again.

ROB
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve heard the voice before. I had to fight them.

JAMES
It’s the initial start and then the follow-through. I think a big part of it is selecting something or deciding to do something that you enjoy independently of the money you're trying to make on it or whatever because you have to want to be there and want to do it. And when things don't go right, to not just run for the hills or… You know, that little voice saying, “I told you so. This was never going to work” and yada-yada-yada. You got to be able to push that out.

SAMARA
I named that voice. That voice’s name is Leroy.

ROB
[Laughter]

SAMARA
“Why? But Leroy, why?” As an entrepreneur, you work in a silo -- with me and my computer. So yes, there are moments when I talk to myself because I don’t have a board.

ROB
Me, too.

SAMARA
I am the board. So it's me and Leroy and the other positive voices in my head.

JAMES
Do they have names, too?

SAMARA
Huh?

JAMES
Do the positive--

ROB
They don’t have names?

SAMARA
No. [Inaudible - 39:08] sacred to me so we don’t--

JAMES
Oh okay.

ROB
Oh okay. You can tell us. It’s just a few of us and a few thousand people. You could tell us.

SAMARA
Right. I can throw Leroy under the bus.

ROB
[Laughter]

SAMARA
But yeah, it’s always like, “Okay, yeah, Leroy, we hear you but we're going to do this anyway,” you know, and you get into the habit.

I remember when I get that feeling, when Leroy is loudest or when fear is loudest in my head, I just keep saying like, “On the other side of this hurdle is success.” You're right there at the cusp. And the closer you get to actually achieving, the louder that voice gets and so it's like, “Oh yeah. Okay, we're just going to push past because we're right there.” You're expanding your horizon. And as soon as you get past it… I mean it’s glory waiting on the other side, you know.

ROB
You’re so right. What I tell folks, when you look at where you're at… And people always like to measure, “What could go wrong? What could go wrong? What could go wrong?” Well you should also measure not taking action. What if you're going to be in the same awful job for the next 10 years of your life? What if you're not going to change any circumstances? You're not going to be able to move forward. Measure not only what could happen, what could go wrong, measure what could happen if you do not take that risk.

SAMARA
If you don’t do anything.

ROB
James?

SAMARA
You’re absolutely right.

JAMES
Yeah. Yeah, 100%. People don't evaluate that risk properly, oftentimes, and oftentimes exaggerate the risk of doing something different.

ROB
Usually, it’s really exaggerated.

SAMARA
Yeah.

JAMES
I have another question for you though. We know about the internal voice -- the positive, the negative. What do you find as far as it being a contributory aspect of your success; as far as surrounding yourselves not with actual people that are negative versus trying to be around people that are positive or that are also trying to push the limits and do stuff and that challenge you?

SAMARA
That has been my biggest struggle, honestly. My biggest struggle has been internal and it has also been with reading people who were not supportive of my path and my journey. And then also going back internally, me not realizing that I was worthy of having a better tribe.

ROB
Yeah. Wow.

SAMARA
I got in touched with my career coach/spiritual coach and she's like, “Well how can I help you with your business?” And I always say, “My business is great. If I got rid of all the other nonsense in my life, I could really be able to thrive in my business.”

ROB
So what stops that?

SAMARA
I’m trying to find the polite words to say this but--
ROB
It doesn’t have to be polite. It’s just [inaudible - 42:04].

SAMARA
You know, you can't carry dead weight. You can't.

ROB
Oh I understand that.

SAMARA
You've got to be willing to shed the dead weight. And that could come in the form of your friends. It could come in the form of your family. If they are not for you, if they don't believe in your vision, if they don't trust your vision and they are in the way of your success, you've got to politely say, “I love you but no. I’m still climbing. I’m still going on this journey and…” I don't know. You just tell them “No.”

ROB
That’s very hard though, right? That’s probably one of the hardest things there is to do. I can speak from personal experience as well that toxic people, and often the most effective people at being toxic and bringing your life down, are those who are closest to you.

SAMARA
Yeah.

ROB
They can bring you down. There's been studies that's been shown that… you might think in a positive way, you have your mind made up this way but the people you hang around, if they have a different mindset, they have a backwards mindset, they have a negative mindset, whatever it is, they actually rewire your brain. Your brain changes to the people around you. I mean you really do.

You do have to do that for your own sanity because toxic people and toxic situations can really derail your entire career. That's usually what happens to people. I’ve had my own personal experiences there. And my advice there is to be as ruthless as possible there. I mean it sounds bad but it's the best advice you can do because--

And when you do this, when you change the dynamics of what's expected, the people that have been used to dominating you that way or having that influence, they react even crazier because they feel like, “What's going on?”

SAMARA
Yeah, they do. They [inaudible - 43:57].

ROB
Exactly.
SAMARA
Yeah.

ROB
But you know what -- not your problem. [Laughter]

JAMES
I’ll say this… -- [Crosstalk] Please, go ahead.

SAMARA
The biggest example of that is -- and this is very honest -- a year into my business, I ended up getting a divorce and moving from Oakland to Los Angeles with my two children only to move into my parent’s house. So I got out of one toxic situation where I realized that someone was against me only to come to my childhood home and realize that the dysfunction and the toxicity in my house was also preventing my success.

Really, again, the amount of energy that is spent just in weeding off that energy from you takes away from you being able to focus on your business and help your business grow.

So you're absolutely right. A toxic environment, toxic friends, they just drain your energy. They take your energy away from what it is really supposed to be useful.

And I have. I’ve let go of my ex-husband. I’ve had to let go of my father who I actually… Again, I said I’m a fourth-generation entrepreneur. So, you know, admiring my father's work ethic and really admiring his story of how he came from rural Alabama, hitchhiked his way to LA and worked his way up and became a millionaire. You know what I mean? I admire him yet his toxicity is something that I can't even have around me. I have had to part ways with him. And you do have to be prepared for that.

And being an entrepreneur, it is isolating. And it's isolating because the higher you climb, the less likely you will have people with you by your side. Not everybody is in for the journey. Not everybody is prepared. And you have to be willing to continue to climb up that ladder by yourself.

JAMES
Well yeah, if you pull people out of their comfort zone, what their expectation is or whatever box they have you in, people can react that way. I always said, “The first thing you have to do is identify.” Be able to identify the people around you that are the ones that are helping you, the ones that are hurting you.

You really hit it on the head when you said the “draining of the energy” because that's really how you can tell. When you're around people and you feel you can accomplish less, like your drained, that's how you know. And then when you're around other people and it’s like, “Man, I feel like I can accomplish anything,” those are the people you should hang out with more because that energy drain is real. And with what Rob was saying, I didn't even know about that. “Rewiring your brain” -- hoo, that’s something else.

SAMARA
I encourage any entrepreneur or anybody, actually, in our age group, needs to go through therapy.

ROB
I agree.

SAMARA
I really believe, if you're going to go on this journey of entrepreneurship, you've got to have a sound mind. You've got to be at peace. You have to have a spiritual practice of some sort. I don't care what it is. It's your choice. But you have to be rooted and grounded into some sort of faith.

ROB
I agree

SAMARA
If you don't have that then you will be succumbed by your failures. You will quit.

ROB
Most of all, you’ll also repeat some of the same patterns. You will invite the same type of toxic people into your life. You will sabotage your own life, unknowingly. I mean it is more than entrepreneurship. It's the truth of understanding yourself. That's the great thing about therapy.

SAMARA
Yeah. Again, those patterns become very clear and then you're able to see them in your business. Like, “Okay, Fine. I realize some mistakes I made in planning events in 2017. I don't have to repeat that pattern. I can remove that. I can create new patterns, new measures” and that's how you do [things. It’s us - 47:58].

ROB
So as we kind of come towards the end, I want to just get a sense of where you want your legacy to head. So a couple of questions: You have a committee of three, living or dead. Who is on that committee to advise you on whatever you want -- your business, life? Who is on that committee and why?

SAMARA
Oh my goodness.

JAMES
Who's going to shut down Leroy?
ROB
[Laughter]

SAMARA
Oprah.
ROB
Okay.

SAMARA
People have often referred to me as the Oprah of the Bourbon business. I don't know why because my bank account looks nothing like hers.

ROB
It took her a while to get there.

SAMARA
Yeah. Even though Oprah has reached billionaire status, she still gets up and goes to work every single day. She’s passionate about what she does. I need a squad that’s always going to recognize the passion and it's going to continue… Even when I achieve whatever the goal is, I am still going to be passionate.

ROB
So what question would you ask Oprah if she was right in front of us? You got one question to ask her. What is it?

SAMARA
“Can I have a hug?”

ROB
[Laughter]

SAMARA
[Inaudible - 49:07]. You know, if I met Oprah today, I would just be dumbfounded. I would be left speechless. But I would really ask what makes her get up every morning and go back to work. What is her new passion because her passions have switched. We've seen her journeys evolve. I think her biggest mission is out of this world. She's so inspiring on so many different levels.

ROB
I agree. Two more people.

SAMARA
Okay, so Oprah, one. So number two, Michelle Obama.

ROB
That’s a good one.

SAMARA
Yeah.

ROB
We’re going to have her on the podcast. I’m just going to say it out there. Don’t know when it’s going to happen. We’ll clear it out in the universe. – All right, go ahead.

SAMARA
So Michelle Obama because she's just such a badass. She has so much grace, so much class and she’s whiz-bang smart. She embodies this divine feminine power that oftentimes, as a female entrepreneur, you can get so caught up in the hunt that you forget to be feminine.

ROB
Right.

SAMARA
I’m watching her now as she does her book tour across the country and how she can just walk into a room and just be quite amazing and turn… Like everybody in the room just turns heads and just like, “Oh my god. It’s Michelle Obama,” you know. And possessing that divine feminine energy is amazing.

And then the third person… Wow. But those are the two living. Okay, if I go for somebody dead… I don't know. Probably… I don't know. I want to say like Yogi Bhajan or something, like one of the famous yogis who know what the universe is and knows how to use the universe to help fulfill goals and dreams and really having a larger perspective on what life really is about.

ROB
Okay. So one other question. You have a billboard, Google ad, whatever you want to call it, that summarizes your beliefs or a saying that's about you. What would it say and why?

SAMARA
Oh god -- a billboard that says something about me?

ROB
A saying, a motto -- whatever. It summarizes the essence of who you are. You want this to be in your eulogy to say, “This is what I want everybody to know. This is it.” What would it be?

SAMARA
“She made it to the other side of the mountain.”
ROB
Okay.

JAMES
Very nice. Very nice.
ROB
All right.

SAMARA
This journey has not been easy. Like I said, it’s interesting being a pioneer but it has also been a learning process of discovering who I truly am. So yeah, “I made it to the other side.”

ROB
All right, you made it to the other side. -- Samara Rivers. -- “Bonded in Bourbon” is the podcast, correct?

SAMARA
Yeah.

ROB
“Bonded in Bourbon” and the Black Bourbon Society. Before we conclude, “Bonded in Bourbon,” how did that come about? Was there a similar story to Uncle Nearest?

SAMARA
No. “Bottled and Bond” is a term used in the whiskey industry. It describes bourbon that has been aged at least four years. It's a hundred proof and it's government sanctioned -- all of that. So my partner and I took a twist off of that phrase “Bottled and Bond” and created “Bonded in Bourbon.”

ROB
Okay.

SAMARA
So the show is a whiskey review show from a “His and Her’s” perspective.

JAMES
Okay.

SAMARA
So we’re kind of just [inaudible - 53:26] but way cooler. We review whiskeys every week. But it really is a nod to our relationship because we did form a bond, literally, over whiskey.

ROB
Yeah. So I guess kind of similar. No babies but at least you did form a bond.
SAMARA
Yeah.

ROB
That’s good.

SAMARA
And from that, we fell in love. He's my partner for life. He's my business partner. He's my life partner, my everything, yeah.

ROB
That’s awesome. So when you're coming to Cincinnati… and I was serious about maybe seeing if we can do something to help pop up an event. I like bourbon. You seem like a cool person. We can do something first and drink some bourbon and talk. Seem like [a good thing - 54:06].

JAMES
Oh yeah.

SAMARA
Oh yeah. So I’ll be there for Bourbon in the Park. I just got invited earlier this week to speak.

ROB
Oh look. See? That’s God's exquisite timing. That's how I look at it.

SAMARA
Yeah. That's how the universe works. So I’ll make it work. I’ll be there. I think it's September 14th.

ROB
Okay. I think I’m around.

SAMARA
So we'll plan something.

ROB
Yeah, we can do something. That'll be good.

SAMARA
We’ll [put up our link - 54:32] in Cincinnati and around Ohio. So [inaudible - 54:37] and join us.

ROB
All right. And we’ll also make sure to post it all on both our YouTube, all on the podcasts and when we advertise it. We’ll make sure people know about Black Bourbon Society, Bonded in Bourbon and--

JAMES
“Bonded in Bourbon.”

ROB
That’s a great name, by the way.

JAMES
Yeah. I want to bond in bourbon, too.

SAMARA
I haven’t trademarked that. Let me get on that today.

JAMES
Hey, give me a call. Give me a call, yeah.

ROB
Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.

JAMES
Yeah. Oh I like that. That’s good.

ROB
Yeah. Definitely trademark it. That's a great name. I look forward to working with you. Thank you for all you do. We'll make sure that people know about Bonded in Bourbon and the Black Bourbon Society and look forward to doing something in September in Cincinnati. -- Samara Rivers, thank you for coming on.

SAMARA
Yeah. Goodnight, guys.

ROB
Stay awoke if you want to stay free. I’m Rob Richardson…

JAMES
…and I’m James Keys…

ROB
…and we'll see you next time.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]