A few days ago I was at Malik Books for a book signing for John Hope Bryant's new book, Capitalism for All: Inclusive Economics and the Future-Proofing of America — a national bestseller making the case that the fix for economic inequality isn't abandoning capitalism, it's making it actually work for everyone. Arlan Hamilton was there too, and the conversation moved through storytelling, creativity, and entrepreneurship in a way that stuck with me longer than most panels do.
What I walked away holding onto was smaller and more specific than either topic: we're only really competing with previous versions of ourselves. The real magic happens when you recognize how far you can go collaborating with others, instead of treating every room as a competition to win alone.
That's not a new idea, but it landed differently in that particular room — a genuinely independent Black-owned bookstore that's been a fixture of LA's cultural landscape for years, hosting a conversation about building an economy that includes more people rather than fewer. Bryant's whole body of work, going back decades with Operation HOPE, is built on that same premise: financial literacy and inclusion as the actual lever, not a slogan attached to one.
I don't have a tidy takeaway to wrap this in. Just gratitude for the room, and the reminder that the version of you worth measuring against is the one from a year ago, not the person next to you.