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Why 98% of Immigrant Businesses Fail (And What One Bankruptcy Survivor Learned) | Art Chang on Leadership, Small Business, and the Currency Beyond Money

What happens when your business dies at 27 and still, your employees don't leave you? Art Chang—NYC mayoral candidate, women's studies major, and bankruptcy survivor who went on to build dozens of wildly successful companies—reveals the hidden currency that saved him, why immigrant entrepreneurship myths are dangerous and the systemic failures killing small businesses in America.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why a man majored in women's studies—and how it became his framework for understanding power
• Growing up amid racism and trauma: How immigrant childhood shapes resilient leadership
• Running for NYC mayor: Ranked choice voting, coalition building, and sharing the mic
• COVID exposed the tech gap: Why 98% of Chinatown businesses lost revenue
• Storytelling as survival: The hidden advantage separating thriving founders from struggling ones
• Bankruptcy at 27: What the system rewards (hint: not community value)
• Trust as currency: Why his employees stayed when he couldn't pay them
• Beyond networking: Give before you get and build relationships that matter
• Tender-hearted masculinity: Redefining leadership for a new era

SHOCKING STATS:

• 61% of small business owners struggle with cash flow (QuickBooks, 2021)
• Immigrant business owners face 2-3% higher interest rates (Harvard Business School)
• Small business owners often one week of revenue away from collapse

ABOUT ART CHANG: 

NYC Mayoral Candidate 2020 | Bankruptcy Survivor | Small Business Advocate | Women's Studies Major | Champion for Immigrant-Owned Businesses

Art learned the most important business lesson through bankruptcy: real currency isn't money—it's faith in people, confidence you instill in them, and genuine investment in their growth.

🔗 CONNECT with Art:
LinkedIn - http://linkedin.com/in/artchang
Medium - http://medium.com/@achangnyc
Instagram - http://instagram.com/achangnyc
The Tech Mayor Project - https://techmayor.nyc/
CACF: Coalition for Asian American Children and Families - http://cacf.org/

CHAPTERS: 1:00 Show Open And Guest Introduction 3:15 Why A Man Majored In Women's Studies 6:08 Growing Up Amid Racism And Trauma 10:22 Women's Studies As A Framework For Power 14:50 Running For Mayor And The Mic 16:22 Ranked Choice Voting And Power Sharing 20:30 Small Businesses As A Lifeline 24:40 COVID Exposed The Tech Gap 28:10 Storytelling As Survival For Founders 31:00 Privilege, Access, And Who Gets To Start 34:40 Self-Education And Business Basics 38:10 The First Company's Rise And Fall 42:20 Bankruptcy, Balance Sheets, And Capitalism 46:05 Community Value Capital Doesn't Count 49:20 Paying People Back And Earning Trust 52:05 Beyond Networking: Give Before

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She Almost Died and Came Back to Tell Y'all: Stop Giving These Companies Your Integrity for Free

What happens when you almost die—and then go back to work in a place built on performative safety? In this raw, unflinching conversation, Jodi-Ann Bury shares how a three-week hospital stay rewired everything she thought mattered about career, status and survival—and why she couldn't keep lying to protect a company's image.

We get into:

💀 The hospital reckoning — When you think your life is over, the only thing left is integrity. Status symbols? Gone. The 3am emails? Irrelevant. What remains: the people who show up every single day.

🎤 The unbearable weight of the lie — Returning to public-facing leadership after nearly dying, and realizing she couldn't keep pretending her company was a "safe space" just because she was there.

🖤 Why Black women's thought leadership is under siege — Our thoughts, our leadership, and our frameworks are being actively targeted and stamped out. And if you don't know what Black women are thinking? You're in danger.

📚 Thought leadership as survival — Not magic. Not aspiration. But ancestral, collective knowledge that keeps us whole, keeps us well, and when done right, keeps us in deep community.

✍️ From concept to reality: Meet Authentic — Jodiann's book didn't start as a book. It started as a need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid and start taking her own medicine. Hear how years in startups, international development, and "let's save the Earth" organizations shaped her refusal to stay silent.

Keywords: thought leadership, Black women leadership, workplace authenticity, integrity, DEI, diversity equity inclusion, speaking truth to power, corporate culture, near death experience, personal transformation, authentic leadership, Black feminist thought, professional development, career pivot, workplace toxicity, burnout recovery, leadership coaching, women of color, corporate survival, building authority

This episode isn't about inspiration. It's about what happens when survival forces you to choose honesty over comfort—and why Black women's intellectual property isn't optional, it's essential for the next seven generations.

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'📚 READ - Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work  by Jodi-Ann Burey

📺 WATCH - Jodi-Ann's TED Talk

🔗 CONNECT - Learn more about Jodi-Ann's work 

👉🏾TAKE THE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spo

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👉🏾 TAKE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spoiler: it's probably not where you think.

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Skip the Book Deal: One Powerful Article with Kleaver Cruz

Tired of waiting for the "right time" to become a thought leader? In this episode, we sit down with Kleaver Cruz to explore the alternative path to publishing—and why you don't need a book deal to build authority.

We get into:

🔥 How one well-written article can attract editors and agents—bypassing years of the traditional publishing grind

📖 Why there are no hard and fast rules in publishing—success looks different for everyone, and the "right" path might not exist

✍️ Strategic article placement that actually works—it doesn't have to be the New York Times to open doors

💭 Toni Cade Bambara's radical ideas on identity and self-discovery—reclaiming ownership of who you really are (not who the world told you to be)

💪 Why marginalized communities must embrace thought leadership—and how to make money doing it authentically

🎯 The difference between existing in public and being truly amplified—real strategies for building genuine influence from the margins

This conversation is raw, unapologetic, and absolutely essential for anyone building authority without waiting for permission.

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📚 READ - The Black Joy Project by Kleaver Cruz

🔗 CONNECT - Learn more about Kleaver's work 

👉🏾TAKE THE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spoiler: it's probably not where you think. 

📧 JOIN - Madame Speaker Says Newsletter Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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Ready to turn your ideas into influence? Learn more about building thought leadership on your own terms. Apply for 1:1 coaching to transform your voice into your greatest asset.

👉🏾 APPLY FOR COACHING | Spots are limited.

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👉🏾 TAKE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spoiler: it's probably not where you think.

📧 JOIN - Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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Building Thought Leadership as a Marginalized Voice 🎙️✨

Tired of waiting for permission to lead? In this episode, we sit down with Sisonke Msimang to unpack what it actually takes to become a thought leader—especially when the world wasn't built with you in mind.

We get into: 

1. 🔥The audacity required to claim your voice when structural violence says you shouldn't 
2. 📖 Why your belief in yourself has to come FIRST—before the book deal, the Ted stage, the validation 
3. 👁️ The power dynamics keeping marginalized voices off the megaphone (and how to reclaim it) 
4. 💪 Why Black women and marginalized storytellers stepping into public power literally changes everything 
5. 🎯 The difference between existing in public and being truly amplified

This conversation is raw, unapologetic, and absolutely essential listening for anyone building influence from the margins.

📚 READ - Sisonke Msimang's transformative works explore identity, narrative, and the power of storytelling 

🔗 CONNECT - Learn more about Sisonke's work at REACH Fellowship 

👉🏾TAKE THE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spoiler: it's probably not where you think. 

📧 JOIN - Madame Speaker Says Newsletter Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

💼 READY TO ACTUALLY BECOME THE THOUGHT LEADER? 

You've got the ideas. You've got the fire. Now it's time to get paid for it. I help high-achieving Women of Colour execs, founders, and creatives like you turn that audacity into authority and that whisper into a megaphone.

If you're ready to: 📚 Get your name on a book cover and cement your authority 💸 Command stages and keynote fees that actually match your impact 🥇 Own your space as a #1 voice in your industry

Apply for 1:1 Coaching and let's make your thought leadership impossible to ignore.

Spots are limited—I can only work with a handful of clients to protect the integrity of this work.

👉🏾 APPLY FOR COACHING 

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👉🏾 TAKE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spoiler: it's probably not where you think.

📧 JOIN - Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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Our 2020 Conversation with Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo—the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate, saxophonist, member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the woman who held that laureateship longer than anyone in decades—breaks down why joy isn't escape, it's resistance.

This conversation pulls from her work that refuses to separate poetry from music, grief from celebration and survival from beauty. Harjo, who lost her mother young, played jazz in honky-tonks to pay for college and still writes poems that make you weep and dance in the same breath.

In this Love As A Kind of Cure 2020 recording, you'll hear Harjo talk about what it means to carry ancestors in your words, why a saxophone is as much a storytelling tool as a pen, and how Indigenous women have been practicing joy as revolution long before anyone gave it a hashtag. This isn't inspiration porn—this is a masterclass in staying soft in a hard world without breaking.

From the poet who gave us "She Had Some Horses," played backup for her own readings, and reminded a country that this indigenous land--Turtle Island--now known as the United States, had poets long before it had a name. Here's Joy Harjo on memory, music  and why joy might be the most dangerous thing you can claim.

📧 JOIN - Madame Speaker Says Newsletter Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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👉🏾 TAKE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spoiler: it's probably not where you think.

📧 JOIN - Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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BONUS Episode - From our 2020 Conversation with Nikki Giovanni

Think poetry is just pretty words? Think again. Nikki Giovanni—who survived lung cancer, buried her best friend James Baldwin, and kept teaching at Virginia Tech through everything—breaks down Morrison's genius, the writers who shaped her, and why celebrating "The Bluest Eye" fifty years later isn't nostalgia, it's survival.

This was our 2020 conversation when the world felt like it was cracking open and we needed Giovanni's voice—sharp, warm, uncompromising—more than ever.

You'll hear her talk about Morrison the way only someone who lived through the same fights can. About what it meant to watch "The Bluest Eye" land in 1970. About the cost of telling truth. This isn't a polite literary chat—this is two women who know what it takes to keep your voice alive when the world wants you quiet.

From the poet who gave us "Ego-Tripping" at 24 and never stopped writing fire: here's Nikki Giovanni on legacy, love, and why some books don't just survive—they save lives.

📧 JOIN - Madame Speaker Says Newsletter Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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👉🏾 TAKE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spoiler: it's probably not where you think.

📧 JOIN - Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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Our 2020 Conversation with Arundhati Roy 

Think love is just sentiment? Think again. Arundhati Roy—author, activist, truth-teller extraordinaire—breaks down how love becomes revolution, how tenderness transforms into resistance, and why the most radical act might just be refusing to harden your heart in a brutal world.

This was our 2020 keynote for "Love as a Kind of Cure's Freedom Festival, hosted with my partner in crime Cleyvis Natera. This conversation was recorded when the world felt upside down and we needed Roy's fierce wisdom more than ever.

You'll hear Roy's unfiltered thoughts on writing as resistance, the politics of storytelling, and why love might be the most subversive force we have. This isn't your typical literary interview—this is a masterclass in using your voice when the stakes couldn't be higher. 

From the Man Booker Prize winner who gave us, "The God of Small Things" and has  never stopped fighting: here is love as a kind of cure. 

📧 JOIN - Madame Speaker Says Newsletter Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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👉🏾 TAKE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spoiler: it's probably not where you think.

📧 JOIN - Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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🎯 PART 3/3 - The MAIN Character Method™: How to Embody Unstoppable Authority

Ready to own every room like Beyoncé owns a stadium? This is where everything clicks. We're breaking down the complete MAIN Character Method™ framework that transforms brilliant people from invisible to impossible to ignore.

Think you can't have that level of aura and embodiment? Think again. You ARE capable of main character energy—you just need the right method to unlock it. The MAIN Character Method™ makes it simple: Mindset, Action, Impossible moves, Nonstop revision.

Starting with M for Mindset: You need to shift your perspective and truly believe you are HER. You are that famous expert. You are that thought leader. This isn't about fake confidence—this is about embodying the authority you already possess.

You'll master the complete framework for building unshakeable confidence, developing executive presence, and stepping into your power as an entrepreneur. This is about mindset mastery, personal development, and finally claiming your space as the thought leader you're meant to be.

📋 DOWNLOAD - Your Free Vision Guide Worksheet

🚀 APPLY - Storytelling Summer Intensive (deadline: Monday, AUG 18)

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👉🏾 TAKE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spoiler: it's probably not where you think.

📧 JOIN - Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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 🎯 PART 2/3 - Why Brilliant People Hide (Spoiler: It's Not Humility)

We're diving deep into the real reason brilliant people stay invisible: the fear of judgment that makes you defer to everyone else's narrative except your own. You know that voice that says "What I have to say is stupid" or "Who would want to listen to me anyway?"

Time to call BS on that voice and understand what's really happening underneath. Because when you hide behind other people's stories, you don't come off as generous—you come off as inauthentic. And that's costing you more than just visibility.

You'll discover how to alchemize shame, claim your name, and do the mindset work needed to tell your signature story from power, not fear. This is about overcoming imposter syndrome, building confidence as a content creator, and finally stepping into your authority without apology.

📋 DOWNLOAD - Your Free Vision Guide Worksheet

🎧 NEXT WEEK: Part 3/3 - Becoming HER: MAIN Character Method™ for Visibility

🚀 APPLY - Storytelling Summer Intensive (deadline: Monday, AUG 18)

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👉🏾 TAKE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spoiler: it's probably not where you think.

📧 JOIN - Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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🎯 PART1/3 - Getting Clear on Your Vision 

Tired of nodding politely while dumber people mansplain your own brilliance back to you? Tired of saying 'someday I'll write that book' while the same plain vanilla people publish plain vanilla stories that become bestselling books? 
Stop studying success in theory and start dissecting it in practice. We're reverse-engineering how expert storytellers you actually admire built their visibility and platforms—not through inspiration porn, but through strategic study of what actually works. 

You'll walk away with a 7-day framework to identify your visibility models, extract their patterns, and find your unique angle that makes competitors irrelevant. 

📋 DOWNLOAD - Your Free Vision Guide Worksheet

🎧 NEXT WEEK: Part 2/3 - Why brilliant people hide (spoiler: it's not humility) 

🚀 APPLY - Storytelling Summer Intensive (deadline: Monday, AUG 18)

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👉🏾 TAKE QUIZ - Stop guessing what your vibe is. Take the quiz to discover your thought leadership type, your secret superpowers, and—let's be real—exactly where you're getting in your own way. Spoiler: it's probably not where you think.

📧 JOIN - Expect fresh newsletters every week or so, where I share bare truths, storytelling tips and plenty of F-bombs.

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Ready to turn your ideas into influence?

APPLY for 1:1 coaching to transform your voice into your greatest asset.