Businessman Grant Cardone looks on prior to the game between the Miami Heat and the Minnesota ... [+]
One of the top tips for emerging professionals is to read books on business and self-improvement. Yet identifying with this content is challenging for many, given the dominance of authors and experts in the genre: white men. For context, only one book by a woman of color currently ranks in the Top 100 Bestsellers on Amazon in the Leadership & Motivation genre: The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker.
Hearing popular author and thought leader Grant Cardone's recent comments to Lara Trump about how he speaks to “half of his audience who are Black and under the age of forty” is eye-opening and disappointing. “If I see a 55-year-old white man or a 25-year-old Black kid, the Black kid knows who I am. We go after that audience,” Cardone said. “We are talking to them in very street terms. Not big nomenclature vocabularies. You know we keep everything very tight and simple.”
Openly disrespecting Black professionals prompts a critical closer look at who we support as thought leaders and why they deserve your money.
Banking On The Black Community
Grant Cardone’s meteoric rise to fame and fortune is rooted in a well-documented genesis story of humble means and hustle. This vulnerability, his perceived transparency, has drawn a diverse audience and it’s now the same earnest quality prompting backlash.
It seems that Cardone’s “simple” insight has never come with a higher price tag for his followers. The most recent three-day 10X Growth Con featured twice-retired Tom Brady as a speaker costing attendees $1,500—$20,000 per ticket. Presently The Cardone Alliance Program, an online course, is discounted from $35,000 to $9,750 for a limited time and includes two tickets to a premium summit and training valued at $170,000 each.
As an avid reader (Black and just under 40), I’ve purchased many of Cardone’s books over the years and could relate to radio show hosts of The Breakfast Club Charlamagne tha God and DJ Envy’s dismay. “You guys follow him and spend all this money but you see how he looks at you. He looks at you as a check, he looks at you as green,” DJ Envy said.
Envy seemed to draw a line in the sand for listeners of the show. “You can continue to follow that man if you want,” he said on air. “But he’s not trying to help your community. He’s just trying to make millions and billions of dollars off of you.”
Cardone’s openness on his tactics towards Black professionals was off-putting for Charlamagne. “He’s basically saying he dumbs down what he is saying,” Charlamagne said. “As if the Black audience is dumb.”
Black professionals deserve respect and valuable career insight. We seek expert business voices and thought leaders, yet how and where can they be found in a homogeneous landscape?
Finding Trustworthy Experts
Identifying an expert to follow comes down to values and how that leader gives back to the community they serve. It may take more time to discover author Rachel Cargle or investor and founder Arlan Hamilton, but it is definitely worth the search.
Rachel Rodgers, bestselling author of We Should All Be Millionaires and CEO of Hello Seven is an established thought leader in the entrepreneur space and believes value alignment is critical when finding an expert voice worth following. “Someone may be an expert,” she said in an email, “but we want to ensure that they are committed to being anti-racist and respecting and celebrating people of all identities.”
One way to identify intentionality is by following how and to whom a thought leader donates. “I prefer to listen to John Hope Bryant,” said Charlamagne. "A person like Bryant connects with Black people because he is a Black person. He pours into our community in a real way. He’s not just telling people how they can get rich. He puts his money where his mouth is when it comes to his community.”
If it is challenging to pinpoint an expert, consider joining or creating a group of like-minded people. After experiencing sexism and racism in programs and at conferences Rodgers decided to create a new community called We Should All Be Millionaires: The Club. “I teach my clients, entrepreneurs from historically excluded backgrounds, how to build seven-figure businesses,” said Rodgers. “I created it because I couldn't find a business community that was diverse, inclusive, and striving towards equity.”
Striving for equity doesn’t require thought leaders to be perfect; however, when they miss the mark, it helps to interrupt the deluge of scheduled tweets to acknowledge a misstep. Cardone has yet to admit that he has alienated half of his audience through his careless comments. Maybe it’s time for self-proclaimed experts to listen to the folks they say they serve through endless products, seminars, and slash-down sales tactics.
