“You be good, now, Ivan,” she told him.

“You know I will.”

Levonia looked at her notes and didn’t know where to pick up their conversation. Ivan had said so much already that she could work from.

Finally, she asked him, “Well, is there any advice that you would like to give to a young black professional looking to do anything close to what you’ve been able to do? I mean, just anything,” she asked him.

Ivan smiled and took a sip of his lemonade.

He said, “You know that old statement ‘When the student is ready the teacher will appear’? Well, that’s always the case. Sometimes we give people advice before they’re ready to use it. And it only becomes important to them after we become wealthy. But all of my real lessons were learned while I was building my company for four years. But that’s now the boring part. We don’t want to learn about all the hours of thought and preparation that an entrepreneur puts into building a brand. We just want to know about the after parties: the girls, the cars, the money, the drama. And as long as we think that way, we will never learn what it really takes to become rich.”

He added, “So I can tell you a million things to do right now, and it won’t change anything for you unless you’re ready to change yourself first. That’s the first thing I had to do when I got started with this four years ago. I had to change the way I thought about a lot of things…But I made those changes. And look at me now.”

IVAN WRAPPED UP his interview slightly after three o’clock, as planned, and walked outside the restaurant into the afternoon sunshine. His well-dressed driver waited outside for him with the blue Rolls-Royce parked at the curb, shining.

“How did it go?” the driver asked on their short walk to the car.

“It went perfectly,” Ivan told him. “And hopefully it will help to get someone started.”

The driver nodded and walked him around the rear end of the car to open the back door for him. Ivan climbed into the backseat. Sitting on the other side was his partner, Lucina Gallo. She wore a beige and white silk dress from Gucci and looked as classy as ever. She was adorned in tasteful diamonds and gold jewelry from her earlobes to her ankles, glistening with stature.

“Did you do good?” she asked him.

First Ivan leaned over to kiss her on the lips. Lucina held his arms gently to balance herself as she kissed him back.

Ivan answered, “Always,” as they disengaged.

“And now we’re back off for New York,” Lucina commented.

“Yup. Let’s hit the airport,” Ivan stated to his driver.

The driver nodded and started the smooth purr of the Phantom’s engine.