Grow My Business

Since 2001, I’ve worked incredibly hard to build my career in the real estate space as well as my personal platform and network. The real estate industry gave me an opportunity to succeed and forge a path and lifestyle, I envisioned for myself, that growing up, I wasn’t sure was possible. As a gay man […]

The glasses were at the end of her nose as she reviewed my financial records. This gave me a very distinct impression I was in trouble. It didn’t help that she reminded me of my 2nd-grade teacher, Ms. Provisor who was a stickler for details and tolerated not an ouch of nonsense. Though I was […]

Last week I spoke with a local gym owner/friend I have been in touch with regularly since the crisis began. I could sense her view of the future was changing and I wanted to understand why. When I spoke to her in late March she had about 4 months of operating cash reserves in a […]

I recently interviewed Shelly Bell, founder of Black Girl Ventures, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to community, education, and leadership development for Black and Brown woman founders. We spoke about the painful and unacceptable racial disparities in the distribution of the Paycheck Protection Program as an example of the gaps in business. She pointed out, we […]

Then as we all now know, sometime around the end of 2019 the Coronavirus pandemic began, disrupting the global economy and shuttering small businesses around the world. Very difficult, for sure, but why was this such a sudden and destructive blow to small businesses after so much progress post-2008? Too little cash reserves and too […]

The US reported a 13.3% unemployment rate in May, — the worst since WWII. This is despite pumping trillions of dollars into the economy designed to save small businesses and jobs. Twelve years of difficult work recovering from the great recession, gone in only two months. We have no reference for such an immediate and […]

Friends, At the end of March, I took my 2020 business and personal goals and put them aside. It was clear, everything had changed and the year I planned was not the year that would be. While it’s still jarring to recall how quickly it all changed, I’m increasingly excited to see how the great […]

This is the end. The end of our naiveté about just how connected we really are. The end of invincibility and thinking our money, our power, or our status can protect us from everything. This is also the end of some relationships. And most certainly the end of some businesses, some careers, hopes and dreams, […]

When the market crashed in 2008 it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was unprepared. As a result, I sat at the precipice of financial collapse until I figured out how to pivot, be successful, and grow during a recession. It was painful.  This time it has been the speed of change that […]