How to break through a fear of failure, with Fawn Weaver & Van Jones

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1:32Hey, folks, Jeff Berman here. We were so lucky to have the brilliant CNN host and entrepreneur, my friend Van Jones, join us at the 2025 Masters of Scale Summit to lead some of the most spirited and inspired and engaging conversations we've had on our stage. In the episode we're sharing today, Van speaks with Fawn Weaver, who is an absolute force of nature. She's the founder of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey. After blitzscaling one of the fastest growing spirit brands in history and becoming the first Black woman ever to build a billion-dollar spirits business from the ground up, Fawn talks with Van about why her focus is not just on building a company, but building an extraordinary life.

2:16You're going to love this one.

2:29Hello, hello. Hello. You're so well known now. Yeah. What you've done is so extraordinary, starting this brand literally from scratch based on a story that nobody knew. We'll get to that. Yeah. But those of us who are massive fans, we would know you better if we knew what? I always show up as me, never as a representative of myself. So the reason I reach people is because they're talking to the real me at all times. I have up no walls. I love that. I love that. Well, you know, I want to, some people may not know this story. How many people here have heard of Jack Daniels? Okay. How many people know that he stole all his stuff?

3:17You better quit that. And you should not have raised your hand. That is absolutely not true. Okay. So tell us the story of Uncle Nearest, just so they know. So be clear, since Van decided to go back to the original story. In 2016, in June of 2016, there was an article in the New York Times, and it was a photo of Jack Daniel sitting with an African-American man was seated to the right of him. The reason why that was important is it was circa 1904. and the photo was Jack Daniel and his leadership team. At that time, any African-American in a photo would be seen on the peripheral if they were allowed in the photo at all.

4:04At all. And in this photo, you had the African-American man to the immediate right. And once you actually look at the full photo that is not cropped, what you will discover is Jack Daniel is off-center. the center position was given to the african-american man so the question becomes why would jack step out of the center position of the photo and give it to an african-american man and you have to look at yourself here in lynchburg tennessee you've got a photographer who undoubtedly has never seen this before understand this and so i'm looking at this the world came to the conclusion because the headline was Jack Daniels embraces a hidden ingredient help from a slave the entire world very quickly determined Jack Daniel was a slave owner stole the recipe hid the slave I looked at the photo and said if you want to hide an enslaved man or his children what you don't do is put him at the center of a phone wrap and so I looked at this and came to a conclusion pretty quickly that it was very possible that Jack Daniel was our first business ally.

5:19And if that was the true story, then I knew to be able to share that with America, who has an underbelly of race we haven't dealt with, that is what the entire world knows our underbelly is race. You poke us there and we will react every single time. And so I knew that if I was going to inject an African American into the story of Jack Daniel Distillery, who we now know Nearest Green is Jack's first master distiller. He was the only known master distiller for distillery for number seven. For those of you who do not know, old number seven was actually Jack's original distillery number. And Nearest Green is the only known master distiller of that distillery.

6:08The reason why I love talking with you and learning from you, most people would say that's interesting. Right. They wouldn't say that's the key to a billion dollar brand. I didn't say that either. I said this is going to be one hell of a book and one hell of a movie. So the book Love and Whiskey tells the story of how this all unfolded. I didn't show up in Lynchburg for a whiskey. I showed up in Lynchburg because I knew it would be a brilliant book that could then be turned into a movie so even when I showed up there I was already a New York Times best-selling author right this would be my third book and I had no doubt that it would be an amazing story if what I believed to be true was true if this was a story in which Jack Daniels stole the recipe from an African-American man or an enslaved man I wouldn't have been interested in that story because we have so many of those.

6:59What drew me to this story was the allyship. The love. Was the love, the honor, the respect. The most famous American whiskey maker of all time moving out of the center position. So when America tried at some point, someone here would attempt to wipe out the legacy of Nearest Green, which they tried in 1978, which is why no one of this generation knew the story. When Jack was alive, when his descendants ran the distillery, all the way to the last one passed to win in 78, Nearest Green and his boys George and Eli were always a part of the story of Jack Daniels. The reason that people are here and people are so fascinated by you is that from the beginning, this is an unlikely story.

7:42And for some reason, you've been able to break the playbook. You have not done a single thing in the playbook. You even said that you don't care about the P &L as much as you care about the love. Talk about how someone like yourself can, and you have people here who are trying to build companies. They may have a story written on their heart that their advisors have told them, oh, don't say that. Don't lead with that. Here's a cookie cutter for this. Here's the way you do that. You've broken all those rules and you've broken through. Just talk about that as a founder. I think the key is this isn't a new blueprint.

8:17You can go back to Carnegie. You could go back to Rockefeller. There are certain elements in every American titan that you can find in this story. What I think a lot of people do, and I think it's a big mistake at the current moment. I have so many people come to me and say, will you mentor me? And every time I say, no, but I'll send you a list of books because I believe it's a crutch. We're looking for someone to guide us. But the reality is everyone still living is still looking to be guided in some area. So if you are incredibly successful in business, but your marriage was garbage and your kids didn't like you by the time you died, I don't want you to mentor me.

9:04Right. And so what I have done throughout 30. Listen, this is about to get real. What I have done throughout my 30 years of entrepreneurship is I have read most books on most titans, and I can tell you what they did. So when I'm looking at any situation that comes up in my company, I don't care how difficult and challenging and crazy it looks to the outside world. I assure you I've already seen this playbook before. I saw it with Reginald Lewis. when he leveraged everything for Beatrice. The first black billionaire. The first black billionaire when he leveraged everything for Beatrice. I saw it with Carnegie when he's building using a material that wasn't safe as far as Americans were concerned.

9:56And yet he had to get them to cross a bridge that he had built that was very expensive that ran two years behind budget in which every investor was knocking on his door and every debt collector, and he had a lot of them, was calling him every single day for two years trying to shut him down, and he's building something that America never even said they wanted. He builds this bridge, and to convince America to cross the bridge, because Americans, for whatever reason, believe that elephants would not walk on anything that wasn't stable, he does a whole PR move to have the elephant lead the people across the bridge.

10:37Do you know how brilliant that is as a PR move? But let me tell you who was one of the most brilliant PR people in the history of American business, Jack Daniel. Okay. And so when I am looking at what I am doing, I don't look at anything that I am doing as unique. You could call out any element of my business and I can point you to who it is that I am following in that regard. But here's the key to doing it this way. And listen, for all of you all who are looking for mentors, go for it. Just make sure their personal life is together, because if their personal life ain't together, you don't want that one.

11:16Still ahead, more from Van Jones' conversation with Fawn Weaver.

11:28This is Mike Nicholas, Capital One business customer and co-founder of Ansett Uncles, a plant-based restaurant and community space in Brooklyn, New York. And he's telling us how they started a product line. We already had a space in the community. The food was an extension of our lifestyle and our values. So we know we wanted to create something that was an offshoot to that. Our pepper sauce. That's my grandmother's recipe. That's like a liquid gold, right? If someone wants to approach us and ask us, what do we do? We provide flavor. Growing a product line is no small investment, but Mike and his wife and co-founder Nicole were able to manage with the help of their Capital One Business Card.

12:07Working with Capital One Business, we're able to leverage our limits and utilize those points, making sure we can continue the scale at the speed that we needed to go. To learn more, go to CapitalOne.com slash business cards. Welcome back to Masters of Scale. You can find this conversation and more on our YouTube channel. and be sure to check out the link in our show notes to subscribe to our newsletter. When I am looking at the blueprints that I am following, I could probably point to 20 different ones that are certain elements, none of them in the spirit business. Gotcha. Because no one, no person of color or woman had ever succeeded before me in the spirit business.

12:54So I can't follow your advice. That's right, that's right. I can't follow what you did. But what I can do is I can look to someone who started with nothing. That's the thing. And then I can watch what they did. And then after they're dead, I'll know whether or not their family liked them. And then I can decide what elements. Y 'all, I'm serious about this. I don't want to just have a great business. Why is that so important to you? Because, look, I have a bunch of questions to hear about business. And you're talking about family. Listen, I've been married 22 years to my favorite person in the world.

13:27My favorite person. It's important to me because I think that people give up so much of themselves to build. Yes. But we weren't placed on earth to build. We were placed on earth to love. And if the building supersedes the love, you are going to walk around empty. And that's why I show up as me and not a rep of myself. I can do that because I am so loved. I don't care about what anybody in here thinks.

14:03Not that y 'all aren't important. You just ain't as important as my husband's words. I'm rarely speechless.

14:13That's what Jeffrey said when he interviewed me. I did this for a living. I'm rarely speechless. But let's talk about this now because let's be honest. We have a bunch of people who are building companies, who are building businesses, and that's how they think they're going to make a difference. That's how they're going to vindicate having been bullied and pushed around and given wedgies on the playground. That's how they're going to show everybody who laughed at them. And it has become a singular pursuit. And in the world of technology, that means that we are going to wind up with the world possibly with an awful lot of data and very little wisdom.

14:48Yes. And we're already now running companies that are data smart and people stupid. Yes. And it has to do with a hole in the heart of these founders. Too often. Too often. And yet, I can imagine somebody saying, well, listen, easy for you to say. You had another career before you became a builder. You have this broad basis of understanding all these stories. If you've ingested in your own personal LLM, and you're now with a billion-dollar company. But I'm 23 years old or 32 years old, and I'm trying, and I don't have nobody that loves me like that. and if I spend time trying to find that love, I'm going to miss my moment.

15:25What do you say to that person? I wasn't trying to find love. Love found me. Okay. I started my first company at 18. Okay. So when my husband found me, I was already building. Okay. But what I was is I was open, right? And so for so many people in the building, they begin to close themselves off because they are so concerned. For those of you who do not know, if you buy any alcohol, it's essentially, for the most part, seven spirit conglomerates, right? Six really, and then, you know, toss in Tito's because he's bigger than all of them, even though he has one bottle of vodka-flavored vodka, right?

16:05But that is 90%, more than 90 % of the volume of alcohol in this country is run by a very small group of people. Then you have this little black girl with all the freaking confidence in the world who walks in here and says, I don't know what I'm doing, but I will figure it out. And by the time I'm done, I will be sitting right beside each of you and I'll be running as much through here as you are. But let me explain the reason I'm able to do this is because I don't care what arrows they throw my way. I won't let it close me. I remain open. And that's a tough thing because people are so afraid of being hurt.

16:52People are so afraid of other people seeing your failure. I said this not too long ago, and people really questioned this on social media, but I'm pretty sure I got the data to back this up. People believe that they have a fear of failure, and it's the reason why a lot of people never launch or a lot of people refuse to scale. They'll stay at a certain level because they're like, if I go to the next level and I fail, so they'll just stay stuck, and they believe that their fear is failure. But I don't believe that is what the fear is. Because if you try something and it doesn't work, but you were the only person who knew you tried it and it didn't work, do you care?

17:39It's not really a fear of failure. It's a fear of public embarrassment, of people knowing that you failed. Isn't that shame button? I don't care. You don't care. Because if I fail, I'll build it again. It's of no consequence to me. Well, look, it's so interesting sitting here with somebody who is free. Yeah. You don't get that a lot, do you? I don't. Yeah, yeah. I don't. You're free. Yeah. And I think that that's something that we don't talk about enough. I worked with Prince for six years. He was free. Yes. He had some painkiller addiction he picked up late in life, and it killed him. but he was free.

18:23And I have not met anybody who felt as free as Prince felt until I'm sitting here with you. I wish you could be up here. It's a remarkable physical experience to be with somebody who is not guarding anything and is not managing a bunch of ego or fear or presentation. It was just flowing. None of these questions are going to get the answer. I'm sorry. It's so funny because when my company is going through anything publicly, anything challenging, and people will check in with me, and they'll text and they're like, are you good? And what I'll do is I'll send them a screenshot of my stress levels on aura.

19:01Do y 'all have an aura ring? So I live between restored and engaged. And so after this, I will go, I'll look at my aura ring at the end of the day, and I assure you I'm going to still be between restored, relaxed, and engaged while sitting here, leading up to here when I leave out of here. And I believe it is because I show up as me. Yes, you do. I don't have a fear of public embarrassment. And you have to, by the way, be embarrassed publicly a few times to know whether or not that statement is true. Yeah. I know nothing about that, but go ahead. But I do believe that a lot of people, when we're talking about master of scale, a lot of people choose not to scale because they're afraid of failure on the next level.

20:01and the reality is is any person who has built anything extraordinary any extraordinary business especially in america they always did it on risk they always did it not knowing what happened on the next level listen i agree with you on that but i just want to say something to you because anybody could say that part take risk but what you've revealed here is there's a secret power that we don't talk about. Yeah. Which is the power of love. Yes. Self-love. Yes. And then being open to love from others. Everybody may not find their 22-year love of life, but you said something about being open. Yeah.

20:46This is a tough game. You get a lot of no's. Mm-hmm. You get a lot of rejection. Mm-hmm. You get a lot of people who you're trying to tell them what your dream is. Yeah. And they're just blinking at you. Yeah. And you got to go to the restroom and get your face right. Well, see, I don't. And that's what I want you to close on is somehow they need to add in these business books and add in all these courses everybody's spending all this money on. Yes. A chapter about love and staying open. Talk about not just the fact of it, but what does it give you? What does it unlock for you to have this secret weapon of love for self and others in your business?

21:25Yeah. So I don't separate business from personal. Okay. I have no separation. I am who I am at all times. I don't care if I have on no makeup and I'm in sweats and I'm at home or if I'm here with you. This is the same as if you were at my house. Now, if you were at my house, I'd have on no makeup and I'd have on sweats. But the exchange would be the same. It is no different for me. But because of that, anyone who knows me knows I lead with my faith. I absolutely lead with my faith. So the reason why when people say no, or when people, if their heart is turned away, if I am looking for something and they choose not to invest or whatever the case may be, I don't look at it as being that person.

22:12And I'll explain what I mean. When Moses was leading the people of Israel out of Egypt, we've all seen all the plagues that happened to Pharaoh because he kept saying no, right? We've all seen this. This is the part that people miss, and I live with this in front of me, is every single time Moses said, let my people go, Pharaoh said, yes. And he let the Israelites go. The next sentence in the Bible, every single time, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart and he did not let the Israelites go. So whenever someone says no to me, I assume it's God, not that person. So I can remain open because that person was only speaking on behalf of the direction God wanted me to go in.

23:13So I'm okay with every no. Fawn.

23:21I didn't do Oprah. I didn't do Jay-Z. This was unbelievable.

23:34Thanks again to Fawn Weaver and Van Jones for joining us. This conversation was recorded live on stage at the Presidio Theater in San Francisco at the Masters of Scale Summit.

23:55We were awarded this incredible contract to put on an event for 2 ,000 people. The budget was around$1.5 million. It was a black tie event. There was a jazz band playing and a cigar bar and a bourbon bar. That's Natasha Miller, Capital One business customer and CEO of Entire Productions, a corporate event management company. And she's telling us how she had to float a large contract for nine months. It was really hard since we were carrying that$1.5 million, most of which passed through to pay for the venue and all the vendors and all the food and beverage. It's this waterfall effect. Thankfully, we were able to handle that with the Capital One credit cards, which have a 2 % cash back on everything.

24:42For Natasha, it wasn't just the financial support from Capital One Business, but the personal investment as well. I had incredible support from my personal banker, Callie. I knew that at any point I was in trouble that I can call her, which I've never had before in a bank, ever. With the help of Callie and her Capital One business card, Natasha was able to stretch every dollar in order to bring this monumental event to life. To learn more, go to CapitalOne.com slash business cards.

25:39Let's go. Thank you.