Speaker 1: Welcome The Money in Wealth with John O'Bryant, a production
Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iheartradioy, Hey, this
Speaker 1: is John O'Bryant and this Money in Wealth podcast series
Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio and the Black Effect Network. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you all for making this book, this podcast, or
Speaker 1: the book top one hundred Amazon. By the way, Capitalism
Speaker 1: for all you haven't got a copy, get it. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you all also for making the podcast
Speaker 1: Money and Wealth top two hundred on top two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty on every continent in the world, top forty
Speaker 1: to fifty Entrepreneurship in America, and top one percent of
Speaker 1: all podcasts. And we are getting into season three with
Speaker 1: some powerhouse guests. I don't normally have guests on the podcast.
Speaker 1: You know, it's normally me just pouring into you for
Speaker 1: forty five minutes. But when I have a guest, you
Speaker 1: know it and they are special. My guest today is
Speaker 1: Steve Steineu.
Speaker 2: That name in this you're in banking, probably he's got
Speaker 2: a household name to use.
Speaker 1: If if you're in banking, you know, he leads one
Speaker 1: of the biggest banks in America, Huntingdon Bank. And if
Speaker 1: you don't know who he is. Well consider yourself lucky, fortunate, blessed,
Speaker 1: and soon enlightened and full disclosure. Steve is a friend
Speaker 1: of mine and I even consider him a mentor of mine.
Speaker 1: He's done two things to me and for me that
Speaker 1: I don't know if I told him personally.
Speaker 2: That showed me who he was. Number One.
Speaker 1: When I was trying to build operation and hope and
Speaker 1: take it to us next to the next level, he
Speaker 1: agreed to join the whole Global Board of Advisors, our
Speaker 1: inaugural group as a founding board member, and he stayed
Speaker 1: on for a year. He was busy, didn't have time
Speaker 1: to do it. He was on for a year, then
Speaker 1: he left. But him coming on the board set the standard.
Speaker 1: And now we have the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas
Speaker 1: City President, We've got all these luminaries, fort the CEO
Speaker 1: of Delta Airlines, all these they call him big ballers
Speaker 1: and shot collars from all sorts, all walks of life.
Speaker 1: But they wouldn't have done that had they not found
Speaker 1: credibility with their peers being on the board. So by
Speaker 1: him saying yes early on and showing up the board meetings,
Speaker 1: I remember he discouraged me from doing virtual meetings. He said,
Speaker 1: you know, he's used to showing up in person and
Speaker 1: being present. And I learned a lot from him backing me.
Speaker 1: The second time he did something that was extraordinary was
Speaker 1: he was a governor of Ohio who was a Republican.
Speaker 1: And I'm not I'm not a partisan player. But you know,
Speaker 1: folks would assume, maybe for the work I do, that
Speaker 1: I'm not a Republican. I don't know why. They just
Speaker 1: that I'm going to be fair. I'm an independent, but
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not political in any way. And that
Speaker 1: didn't matter to Steve. Steve thought the work that we
Speaker 1: were doing is important and Republicans and Democrats need to
Speaker 1: know about it. And I've served three presidents from both parties,
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats, Bush Clinton pre and post president or
Speaker 1: during presidency and post and President Obama. President Bush is
Speaker 1: where I got actually the most work done. Oddly enough,
Speaker 1: and Steve Steinauer said, come with me, and we left
Speaker 1: his office and we went through what I call an
Speaker 1: underground tunnel. It was a connected walkway to this capital.
Speaker 1: And he took me to the Governor's office and put
Speaker 1: his arm around me and said, this is my guy.
Speaker 1: To the governor and we had a great relationship as
Speaker 1: a result of that, he and his governor, his then governor,
Speaker 1: and I just thought that was very special. Again, these
Speaker 1: were two things that were done with no wh he
Speaker 1: was looking just quiet leadership. And Steve, I want to
Speaker 1: just thank you publicly for backing me and backing the
Speaker 1: work because you thought it was important to do.
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, and I still do, John, I still
Speaker 3: think the work is very important in some ways, even
Speaker 3: more important today. But it was kind of you to
Speaker 3: lower the bar and let me join your board for
Speaker 3: a year and get into that founder circle. It was
Speaker 3: it was I think very helpful for the team, both
Speaker 3: board and your team at the time because I remember
Speaker 3: our first meeting. I offered you a couple of thoughts
Speaker 3: about how to engage the directors get the benefit of
Speaker 3: the mind share there, and you did that expertly. And
Speaker 3: that's when I knew I've made a contribution. I can
Speaker 3: now retire and let you give that seat to someone
Speaker 3: more worthy. So happy to have had that time with you,
Speaker 3: and of course over the many years subsequently in different
Speaker 3: forums and in different undertakings, but you were kind to
Speaker 3: let me sort of give you that personal escort over
Speaker 3: to you're a rock star. So we walk over to
Speaker 3: the Leverage J six office and the governor was, I think,
Speaker 3: a great governor and also he's a good friend. I
Speaker 3: was just talking to him. Man and a good man,
Speaker 3: great heart, very religious, very very ethical, and it's done
Speaker 3: wonderful things for the country throughout his service over time.
Speaker 3: And I knew the two of you would connect, you
Speaker 3: just like that, because you cut out of the same cloth.
Speaker 3: You care about people, you care about outcomes, and you
Speaker 3: want to help. And it was one of these rare
Speaker 3: moments for me to be able to see an introduction
Speaker 3: come together with such a dynamic impact.
Speaker 1: So and we need more of that, like my pleasure, Steve,
Speaker 1: thank you. We need more leaders like Steve Steinauer in
Speaker 1: the world today.
Speaker 2: Know what mean by that?
Speaker 1: He takes me to a Republican governor's office when he
Speaker 1: didn't have to do it, and then he sponsors the
Speaker 1: Urban League in Ohio for a speech where when I
Speaker 1: showed up, he didn't just sponsor the speech. He's at
Speaker 1: the dinner with the Urban League leadership. He's he's home.
Speaker 1: This is these people know him, he's their friend. So
Speaker 1: he can go from black to white, or rich to poor,
Speaker 1: or conservatives liberal or the other way around, and get
Speaker 1: respect in both rooms. Now you may say, Okay, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people I know who can do that.
Speaker 1: Really do they do? They run a bank with two
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty billion dollars plus in assets, and my
Speaker 1: guess is the assets have grown beyond that number. But
Speaker 1: the last number I had of their asset site for
Speaker 1: hunting And Bank's two hundred and billion dollars. And Steve
Speaker 1: Steinhauer and his group have partnered with Operation Hope on
Speaker 1: a program that we call Lift Local Business Huntingdon's Left
Speaker 1: Local Business program that's directed two hundred and forty six
Speaker 1: million dollars in book loans to folks from underserved communities
Speaker 1: for small business sixty million of which that we have
Speaker 1: tagged we have identified to black owned businesses alone as
Speaker 1: three and eighty six small businesses serve twenty four hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty active operational business entrepreneurial training courses used. So
Speaker 1: we are active partners with Hunting the Bank. Let me
Speaker 1: give you a bit of background from Steve and then
Speaker 1: let him cut loose here with wisdom, because you're going
Speaker 1: to get a chance to hear from a chairman CEO
Speaker 1: of a top bank in the biggest economy in the
Speaker 1: world and learn something about how this system actually works.
Speaker 1: So he's chairman, president and chief executive officer of Huntingdon
Speaker 1: Bank or Bank Shares and president CEO of hunting A
Speaker 1: National Bank.
Speaker 2: Now he will hopefully unpack what this means.
Speaker 1: But essentially one is a holding company and one as
Speaker 1: an operator is where the operating bank. You would know
Speaker 1: Huntington National Bank. That's where you if you're a client,
Speaker 1: that's where you do business and where you interact. He's
Speaker 1: led the bank to two thousand and nine. The bank
Speaker 1: was born the year after the Freedman's Bank, by the way,
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty six. Before hunting And he was managing
Speaker 1: partner at Cross Harbor Capital Partners. Early in his career,
Speaker 1: he was president CEO of Citizens Financial Group. I actually
Speaker 1: might have met him, I think at Citizens Financial Group.
Speaker 2: I think in Boston. I I'm mistaken. It was a
Speaker 2: division anyway, and he was.
Speaker 1: An executive vice president vice president at Bank of New England.
Speaker 1: He started out as in public service as an analyst
Speaker 1: of the US Treasury Department. They later worked for the
Speaker 1: FDI C Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation also serves on the
Speaker 1: board of directors. A bit of bath in body works.
Speaker 1: I want to get my product from my wife, by
Speaker 1: the way, from from there, and he has a reputation
Speaker 1: that is rooted in compassionate, ethical, results oriented leadership, and
Speaker 1: I can personally certify that that's absolutely the case.
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk more and more about the credentials as
Speaker 1: we go in the conversation. But let's get into this
Speaker 1: Steve Steinauer. First of all, let's get a bit of
Speaker 1: the backstory.
Speaker 3: The Huntington family goes back many many decades. In fact,
Speaker 3: a couple of centuries. The governor of Connecticut who signed
Speaker 3: the Declaration of Independence was a Huntington, Samuel Huntington, and
Speaker 3: the family was quite large and very extensive in terms
Speaker 3: of their activities throughout the US. And so Huntington Ingersoll
Speaker 3: in Mississippi, the largest shipyard in Mississippi, employees about twenty
Speaker 3: thousand people. That was a Huntington family member. Huntington, West Virginia,
Speaker 3: Huntington Beach, California.
Speaker 4: The Huntington were very very large into the trans Continental
Speaker 4: Railway in California. Huntington California, California, and so they're the
Speaker 4: art museum out there, and the one of the family
Speaker 4: members ended up hunting the beach. One of the family
Speaker 4: members ended up in eighteen sixty six, a very physically
Speaker 4: large gentleman who wanted to the.
Speaker 3: National Road went from Washington, d C. To Columbus, Ohio,
Speaker 3: and it stopped in Columbus at that time, and so
Speaker 3: this is where goods and merchants and services flowed through.
Speaker 3: It was either the Erie Canal or the National Road.
Speaker 3: And he felt there was an opportunity to do good
Speaker 3: business and help people. And Honey at that time was
Speaker 3: was born, and Columbus was a you know, it was
Speaker 3: the end of the road. It was. It just wasn't
Speaker 3: that much. It was probably a small town when he started,
Speaker 3: but it quickly became a city in a city of
Speaker 3: some importance to the country. The National Highway ultimately extended
Speaker 3: to Indianapolis. But the the the the the effort here
Speaker 3: by P. W. Huntington and then his sons extended the
Speaker 3: impact of the family for many decades. And the family
Speaker 3: always was very good to the community. So the library
Speaker 3: was started with some funding by the Huntington Bank and
Speaker 3: family and others. Of course, one of the larger nonprofits here,
Speaker 3: it's been in existence well over a century does Meals
Speaker 3: on Wheels, does a variety of public service providers. Was
Speaker 3: founded in the living room of the hunting one of
Speaker 3: the Huntington family members, and we've had a board member
Speaker 3: on that board for over a century. So there's this
Speaker 3: deep legacy of trying to be good to the community,
Speaker 3: give back and those Uh. That DNA that's been formed
Speaker 3: is frankly part of what attracted me to the company.
Speaker 3: It's important to the community that we serve the community
Speaker 3: or I mean the community, I mean the full community,
Speaker 3: the entire community, black, white, et cetera. And uh, you know,
Speaker 3: people of high income and people of very low income
Speaker 3: or even no income. Think about those that are homeless
Speaker 3: or uh, you know suffering other other other debilitating issues. So, uh,
Speaker 3: this legacy, I think is imbued in many of our colleagues.
Speaker 3: We have very long service colleagues there fifty we've had
Speaker 3: sixty year colleagues who've worked here.
Speaker 2: And so this.
Speaker 3: Set of values transcended me. I inherited it. I've tried
Speaker 3: to enable it, tried to further build upon it. But
Speaker 3: it's not something I created these Midwest values, you know, religion, family, respect,
Speaker 3: service to country. These are values that I didn't create.
Speaker 3: They're present throughout this region. And yet our company, as
Speaker 3: a consequence of how we've operated over now one hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty years, has built a bit of a brand,
Speaker 3: a reputation, a halo if you will, about trying to
Speaker 3: be good to people, trying to help businesses, and certainly
Speaker 3: trying to help the communities we serve.
Speaker 1: And when I think about folks under who you lead
Speaker 1: about brand Standardchho's a good man An and others, they
Speaker 1: have that same spirit and that, with all due respect,
Speaker 1: comes from the top. It comes from you, Steve, and
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let you get away from the fact
Speaker 1: that you are leaders.
Speaker 2: I want other people to model your leadership. And also.
Speaker 1: Their sense of showing up being PhD dudes as well
Speaker 1: as PhDs in their mindset is reflected in how you
Speaker 1: show up in community. When I showed up here in
Speaker 1: Atlanta to give a speech for the Columbus Partnership, you
Speaker 1: were there in the room. I mean, here's a chairman
Speaker 1: CEO one of the biggest banks in the world who
Speaker 1: took time to come to Atlanta just look at Atlanta
Speaker 1: as a model. And then I went to Columbus again
Speaker 1: to speak for the Columbus Partnership, which is in and
Speaker 1: of itself a great partnership for how city build itself
Speaker 1: with private public partnerships. I walk in the room there
Speaker 1: once again there's Steve statt Steinauer. It's not like you're
Speaker 1: not busy. Why do you put a premium on showing up?
Speaker 1: How does that relate to the image that you have
Speaker 1: of this being the people's bank? How does this cross
Speaker 1: pollinate with how you run the bank. And finally, in
Speaker 1: this set of questions, what's the purpose of bank? And
Speaker 1: how do people what's a cheat sheet? People can cheat sheets?
Speaker 1: Probably wrong way to say a banker? What is a
Speaker 1: what is a easy lesson that people can grasp of?
Speaker 1: How to get the attention of their banker?
Speaker 3: Five questions? Let me start with the fourth one. UH,
Speaker 3: if I may right, I believe that the company, the
Speaker 3: bank has a purpose. I fundamentally believe that, and we
Speaker 3: express that uh in our purpose statement. But we talk
Speaker 3: about it all the time. I'll talk about two groups
Speaker 3: senior leaders in two days.
Speaker 2: We're here to.
Speaker 3: Help people lead better life, help businesses thrive, and to
Speaker 3: make the communities better, better, stronger. And we have our
Speaker 3: business model is that the intersection of commerce flows of money,
Speaker 3: and so that puts us in a position where we
Speaker 3: can extend ourselves, try to do the right thing and
Speaker 3: help people and businesses. You reference Lift Local Early program
Speaker 3: we've done in partnership with you and your team, which
Speaker 3: has been over by the way, and you know, these
Speaker 3: are efforts to get into the neighborhoods and make micro loans.
Speaker 3: And so when you make in two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: plus thousand and fifty plus million dollars a micro loan,
Speaker 3: that's a lot of micro loans. But we've done some
Speaker 3: partnership with you because it would be like giving away
Speaker 3: money if people didn't understand. And this is what they
Speaker 3: get through the training program that you offer that creating
Speaker 3: a business needs to have certain elements. You show them
Speaker 3: the essential elements. We give them loans. Now these are
Speaker 3: SBA loans. These are loans to businesses that are in
Speaker 3: most cases just starting, so the credit access generally wouldn't
Speaker 3: otherwise be there. And and and yet the performance over
Speaker 3: time because these people have been trained, they've been educated,
Speaker 3: and that's a big word. Education's literacy right, that that
Speaker 3: has spawned jobs in neighborhoods that otherwise wouldn't be there.
Speaker 3: It's created business owners who wouldn't otherwise be business owners.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's it's capitalism, as you describe it in
Speaker 3: your your various books, but particularly I think in your
Speaker 3: new book, which I had the privilege of reading an
Speaker 3: advanced copy of John So I think, well, I'm trying
Speaker 3: to but you know, I'm a banker, so it's I'm
Speaker 3: slow and everything, but but I think those elements are essential.
Speaker 2: Then.
Speaker 3: Now that's two of your five questions. But for people,
Speaker 3: you know, the fifth one was it's really important to
Speaker 3: get educated. It's really important, whether it's financial education or
Speaker 3: anything else, to keep learning, to challenge yourself. And there's
Speaker 3: more and more capacity to do that now with these
Speaker 3: AI tools and and and and and other digital means
Speaker 3: which didn't exist when you and I were growing up.
Speaker 3: We had to do it the hard way, right. I
Speaker 3: remember the first time somebody said to me you should
Speaker 3: make a budget. I had no idea what a budget was.
Speaker 3: My family were blue Clollars. They didn't have a budget.
Speaker 3: My father was an alcoholic, you know, he didn't have
Speaker 3: a he wasn't functional to be able to put a
Speaker 3: budget together. So you learn these things over time, but
Speaker 3: you you have a persistency about it. And you've used
Speaker 3: this word before in various forums where you don't fail
Speaker 3: if you don't quit, and so that persistency is really important.
Speaker 1: And by the way, that's a Tony Wrestler quote. I'll
Speaker 1: give good, We'll give credits due one of our dear friends,
Speaker 1: Tony Wrestler is that if you don't quit, you can't fail.
Speaker 2: One of my partners and friends continue on Steve.
Speaker 3: But that's that attitude of willingness to learn, take some risk,
Speaker 3: do the right thing, work hard. As you we were
Speaker 3: talking before you started taping. You know you're working eighteen
Speaker 3: hours a day, and you've been doing it for so
Speaker 3: long it's like part of your life rhythm, right to
Speaker 3: a certain extent, not quite the same hours, but to
Speaker 3: a certain extent. That's the way I've embraced the opportunity
Speaker 3: of being a banker, and I know others do and
Speaker 3: their different different career pursuits. It's a privilege to be
Speaker 3: able to do the things we do. Think of the
Speaker 3: millions of people you're helping. In our case, hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands of businesses and maybe a couple million people. But
Speaker 3: you know, we make a mortgage loan, that's helping somebody do.
Speaker 3: I'll make a home improvement loan, give them all a loan,
Speaker 3: start a small business. We're the largest SPA lender in
Speaker 3: the country by volume. These things matter.
Speaker 2: Slow that down. Say that again, you're the largest what.
Speaker 3: We're the largest SBA lender in the country by the
Speaker 3: number of loans we make, and.
Speaker 2: So these things that's unbelievable.
Speaker 3: So we help. We're in the position where we can
Speaker 3: help a lot of people and a lot of businesses.
Speaker 3: And so there's a great sense of self satisfaction, a
Speaker 3: great sense of pride in my colleagues who do all
Speaker 3: the work. Anyway, I'm just a show horse and letting
Speaker 3: letting these results flow through. So there's a shareholder return
Speaker 3: as well in the equation. But you know, do you
Speaker 3: and you've said this before, doing well by doing good,
Speaker 3: it's this balance. It doesn't be one of the and
Speaker 3: I believe that. I've always believed that.
Speaker 1: So Steve, I got to correct him a couple of
Speaker 1: times Steve. Steve said, oh, I'm a slow and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get around. Look, here's the endorsement in my
Speaker 1: book from Steve stein This is my newest book, Come
Speaker 1: About Big, Fastened the Draw.
Speaker 2: It's my newest book.
Speaker 1: Steve's already he made sure that his support for what
Speaker 1: we do was front and center. So when you get
Speaker 1: the book, turn to right to the front and you'll
Speaker 1: see Steve Steinauer's endorsement of the book. Johna's focused on
Speaker 1: exactly the issues we face today as a society and
Speaker 1: a challenge and the challenges of aligning our goals and
Speaker 1: institutions and partnership to build the next stage of growth
Speaker 1: and opportunity for all Americans. Inclusive economics can be our
Speaker 1: future roadmap for the dreams of prosperity, must be attainable
Speaker 1: and aspirational for hard work, education, and shared values. He
Speaker 1: shows a compelling path forward at a time when we
Speaker 1: need to come together. What did I describe him as
Speaker 1: the guy who was at the Urban League meeting, and
Speaker 1: he was at the Republican governors meeting. And I see
Speaker 1: him at the White House. I see him at your
Speaker 1: house trying to financi your ouse. I see him in community,
Speaker 1: I see him at the Columbus Partnership. I see him
Speaker 1: showing up in his own family. And so why is
Speaker 1: the People's bank, because you know he's a top twenty
Speaker 1: bank in America, the artist SBA lender by volume. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that he's They've they've done two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty give or take two hundred and fifty million dollars
Speaker 1: with operation and hope in this Huntington's Left local business
Speaker 1: program that we're partnering on to do micro lending for
Speaker 1: the least of these God's children, because every big business
Speaker 1: was once a small one.
Speaker 2: So but at the core of.
Speaker 1: This, as you've heard, he acknowledged without any prompting, his
Speaker 1: own person, part of his own personal background, his decency,
Speaker 1: his accessibility. He can't lend money, can't be a good
Speaker 1: lender unless he has his hand on the post of
Speaker 1: the community. Let me give you say something that Steve won't.
Speaker 1: And then I want to go to your background, Steve. Uh,
Speaker 1: background and banking background in banking, personal background and professional
Speaker 1: banking or banking has it works just to.
Speaker 2: Tea that up.
Speaker 1: An entrepreneur needs a banker, and the banker needs the entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: The Banker's gonna say and the attorney's gonna say ah,
Speaker 1: slow down, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: That's their nature. The conservative, by nature they're supposed to be.
Speaker 1: The banker keeps the entrepreneur from running off the road
Speaker 1: and into a ditch or into a wall. Uh. The
Speaker 1: entrepreneur and attorney only prosper if the banker. Sorry, the
Speaker 1: banker and the attorney only prosper the entrepreneur uh is successful. Conversely,
Speaker 1: the entrepreneur needs the fuel and the protection from what
Speaker 1: will be the banker. The entrepreneur and the accountant without
Speaker 1: capital with out banking, and banking is to Wall Street
Speaker 1: what Wall Street is to the biggest businesses in the world,
Speaker 1: which is a source of capital. And so this is
Speaker 1: a mutually beneficial relationship. But the entrepreneur's gonna be frustrated
Speaker 1: a little bit by the banker tapping on the brakes, and.
Speaker 2: The banker's gonna be frustrated and bemused.
Speaker 1: A little bit by the entrepreneur who's got his foot
Speaker 1: on his or her foot on the gas. But this
Speaker 1: constructive friction, this dynamic tension, is precisely what makes the
Speaker 1: engine go. Everybody sort of respects each other's role. My
Speaker 1: job is to make that banker. Steve's bankers and his
Speaker 1: example comfortable with me that I'm a good credit risk,
Speaker 1: that I'm not going to embarrass them, that if there's
Speaker 1: a problem, I'm gonna tell them first and not let
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna find out by themselves that if
Speaker 1: they're challenge they wanted to chase me, I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: them and work out a restructuring or payment relation. I
Speaker 1: have to have credibility. Credit till comes on the Latin
Speaker 1: would work. Credit comes a lot to work. Credit till
Speaker 1: which is credibility, and capital comes a lot to work.
Speaker 1: Copy toask knowledge in the head. I've got to have
Speaker 1: enough knowledge and enough credibility. So the banker says, this
Speaker 1: is a good credit risk. Now did I have that right?
Speaker 1: Or do you need to correct me with any of that?
Speaker 2: Steve?
Speaker 1: Number two, how does what I say expand into the
Speaker 1: broader context of banking? And number three, you can do
Speaker 1: this anyway you want your personal story, how does it
Speaker 1: inform everything else that you do?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: You got number one right. That is the nature of
Speaker 3: the business model. We're looking to lend. If you will
Speaker 3: rent money, right, extend alone a lot of capital. It's
Speaker 3: used to create income hopefully wealth over time for individuals
Speaker 3: and businesses, but that base level of the loan plus
Speaker 3: some interest gets repaid. So capitalism at its essence, and
Speaker 3: I think this is really important for us as a
Speaker 3: society to make sure that capitalism becomes accessible to all
Speaker 3: and it flows, It just flows. So that's number one. Now,
Speaker 3: I think John, the nature of our our work and
Speaker 3: sort of the way I was brought up have parallels.
Speaker 3: My grandparents had a lot of influence on me growing up.
Speaker 3: They My grandfather worked until he was in his late seventies.
Speaker 3: He was a blue collar worker and never made much money,
Speaker 3: but he found pride in doing work, and his compliment
Speaker 3: to you would be if you're a worker, not not
Speaker 3: if you're out having fun or do you know, it's
Speaker 3: did you did you do a good job? That always
Speaker 3: resonated with me, and that became part of what motivated
Speaker 3: me early in my career. And because I didn't know better,
Speaker 3: I didn't know that, you know, the probabilities of me
Speaker 3: being a CEO of the tenth largest commercial bank in
Speaker 3: the country were almost infinite, you know, one and ah,
Speaker 3: you know, a couple hundred plus million, So I didn't
Speaker 3: didn't think about it. In the terms of playing the
Speaker 3: odds here. I just wanted to do the right thing.
Speaker 3: I wanted to learn, I wanted to get better, and
Speaker 3: I still have those you know, that yearning and just
Speaker 3: like you do, which is why you do what you do.
Speaker 3: You're going to help people. I think throughout your life,
Speaker 3: right when your life's over, if you are in that
Speaker 3: last moment, I suspect you will be helping someone. You know,
Speaker 3: your family, of course, but beyond your family, you'll be
Speaker 3: helping people because that you have that in your body,
Speaker 3: in your spirit. You have that insatiable desire to make
Speaker 3: an impact. And you've done it throughout all your life.
Speaker 3: You've done it since you were nineteen. And for me,
Speaker 3: it took a little bit longer to start because I
Speaker 3: was unclear what I wanted, although I knew I wanted
Speaker 3: some of these elements, and I wanted to move out
Speaker 3: of a small town. I didn't grow up in la
Speaker 3: like you did, and so I didn't know what a
Speaker 3: big city. A big city to me is, you know,
Speaker 3: five thousand people it was at the time, but you know,
Speaker 3: so things progress and you learn and you you you
Speaker 3: you know, you create relationships, you hopefully can find people
Speaker 3: like you, and hundreds of thousands of people who watch
Speaker 3: your videos, who watch you on YouTube, who listen to you.
Speaker 3: Now you know you're impacting and some of what you
Speaker 3: say and do they'll follow. And so you know you
Speaker 3: have this incredible opportunity now with your podcast to impact
Speaker 3: lives around the world. And I know that for you,
Speaker 3: it's very motivational.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I want it is very motivational.
Speaker 1: And every time I talk to you privately or publicly,
Speaker 1: I'm inspired by you. I want people to understand two
Speaker 1: things before they get off this podcast with us today.
Speaker 1: One your backstory, which we're gonna get to no matter
Speaker 1: how many times I have to ask you, but we
Speaker 1: can get to that in a moment. I really want
Speaker 1: to drill down to how do you get become such
Speaker 1: a nice, decent human being that I actually like and respect.
Speaker 1: But before we get to that, please unpack as best
Speaker 1: you can the mystery of banking for the general audience.
Speaker 2: What are some.
Speaker 1: Just misnombers or presumptions or mistakes of understanding misperceptions about
Speaker 1: banking that we can clear up right here, right now
Speaker 1: to hopefully help to set people free.
Speaker 3: Sure, well, John, you touched on this a little bit
Speaker 3: earlier in terms of how you you you act right,
Speaker 3: if you're We view it as a relationship and a
Speaker 3: factor of trust, and if there's an issue, you'll communicate it.
Speaker 3: If there's a problem, you'll work to solve it. Those
Speaker 3: elements of a relationship are so very important. And it's
Speaker 3: harder as these banks get bigger and and you know,
Speaker 3: are the pace of life accelerates around us. But I
Speaker 3: think that's still the essence of good banking and good
Speaker 3: business people and relationships. Technology enables, but it's people in
Speaker 3: relationships and so connecting and you know, your word is
Speaker 3: your bond, and and it is for me. I can't
Speaker 3: legally do business on a handshake, but if I could,
Speaker 3: there would be people like you I would do it with.
Speaker 3: Can't do that anymore, but we can connect with each
Speaker 3: other and look at each other, get a general understanding
Speaker 3: of what you're hoping to achieve, look at it, maybe
Speaker 3: a little more in depth, depending on what the aspiration
Speaker 3: and need is. And then you know, we've got to
Speaker 3: document it with a legal document. But when we say
Speaker 3: we're going to do something looking at each other, making
Speaker 3: a handshake, whatever it is, and we do it, we
Speaker 3: do it. The rest of it's a formality. So I
Speaker 3: think that approach of building credibility and trust is really important.
Speaker 3: I was sitting do one story. I was sitting at
Speaker 3: an event we had a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 3: one of the retired Supreme Court state justices here said
Speaker 3: she loved banking with us, and I said, thank you.
Speaker 3: I thought it was one of these like obligatory things.
Speaker 3: She's at our events, she's saying it, and I said, no,
Speaker 3: I really do. And I said, well, tell me why
Speaker 3: you do. Because I couldn't go to college unless I
Speaker 3: borrowed money, and my mother went to every bank, and
Speaker 3: you were the last stop. You were the last stop.
Speaker 3: If you didn't make that loan, I wasn't going to college, right.
Speaker 3: And I don't hear that a lot, but I hear
Speaker 3: it with some regularity where what we've done has made
Speaker 3: a difference. We have a program that we talk about
Speaker 3: in our mortgage lending where we try to make it
Speaker 3: real for our colleagues. It's called a home not a file,
Speaker 3: because you process hundreds of thousands of mortgage loans, but
Speaker 3: when you connect it with the video of why that
Speaker 3: home was important to that individual, oftentimes it's a first home.
Speaker 3: It it you can't help but be drawn in. You're
Speaker 3: you're you're obviously making a loan and you're doing doing
Speaker 3: your work, but you're impacting lives and it could be
Speaker 3: a family, could be somebody el rely, could be a vetteran,
Speaker 3: it could be somebody disabled. You're impacting lives. So we
Speaker 3: are blessed with the nature of the business we do.
Speaker 3: And that's what I find so inspirational. And for me
Speaker 3: coming from a like a very rural background, blue collar.
Speaker 3: You know, if you said CEO, I, you know, it
Speaker 3: could have been a donut for all I knew. I
Speaker 3: had no idea what that was growing up. And so
Speaker 3: it's this steady learning and willingness to engage with others
Speaker 3: and against the value set of trying to help people.
Speaker 3: And I think our industries replete with I know here
Speaker 3: at Huntington, our colleagues feel that way. They want to help,
Speaker 3: they want to do the right thing, they want to
Speaker 3: help people. And uh, that's why we talk about a
Speaker 3: purpose statement so often.
Speaker 1: So something's odd about the way to the audience, they
Speaker 1: will hear it, not odd for me. They will hear
Speaker 1: what you're saying, and they just they're going to a
Speaker 1: lot of the audience members going to scratch their heads
Speaker 1: because they're like, no, wait a minute. This guy's basically
Speaker 1: saying he wants to make loans, he wants to provide
Speaker 1: access to capital, that if somebody's reasonable and trustworthy and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, he's going to make them alone. But
Speaker 1: aren't banks, you know, discriminatory? That's what they've heard. Aren't
Speaker 1: banks racist? Is what they've heard. And what I would
Speaker 1: say is, if you're dealing with a bank one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years ago or two hundred years ago in
Speaker 1: America and that bank was family owned in a small
Speaker 1: town in the South or wherever, or maybe even the Midwest,
Speaker 1: if that was a small, family owned bank, they might
Speaker 1: have been had some interesting views in the world, and
Speaker 1: they were basically only lending to their friends and family
Speaker 1: members and business owners that they knew, and they were
Speaker 1: of the size they could do that, and they could
Speaker 1: make money just on recycling that capital amongst their crew
Speaker 1: of boutique businesses and whatever. But banking, I'm saying this,
Speaker 1: but making a statement. This is the statements leading to
Speaker 1: a question, Steve. But banking has changed.
Speaker 2: In my view.
Speaker 1: Banks now are now mostly publicly traded Uh, they're highly
Speaker 1: regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, by the Federal
Speaker 1: Reserve in some cases. Going to meet the FED chairman
Speaker 1: actually later this week. I think it's a good man
Speaker 1: by maybe in some cases by the o SEC the
Speaker 1: Office the Contra of the currency, in some cases by
Speaker 1: a state regulator, and the consumer protection Consumer Protection Agency
Speaker 1: also in some cases and in the SEC also possibly
Speaker 1: securities exchange because they're publicly traded. And I've got the banks,
Speaker 1: I mean everybody essentially, if you have a diversified portfolio,
Speaker 1: you've got banks shares in your four oh one K plan.
Speaker 1: The bank has to make loans if they're going to
Speaker 1: be profitable and successful. They can't afford to do it
Speaker 1: was they were. If they were backwards at the leader
Speaker 1: ship level, they can't. If they were not a stage
Speaker 1: state Steve Steinauer, they were the opposite of Steve.
Speaker 2: They couldn't afford to do.
Speaker 1: Racist policies, to be blunt with it in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: because there's too much competition and you'll go out of
Speaker 1: business because racism is a bad business model. And before
Speaker 1: you answer that, I'm gonna answer a question that you
Speaker 1: didn't that just below your pay grade. Let me just
Speaker 1: say this banking is basically administrative costs, well, cost of savings,
Speaker 1: costs of the money to say it's a savings account.
Speaker 1: Administrative costs, let's say two percent on top of that, uh,
Speaker 1: and then profit let's say that's three percent whatever, pick
Speaker 1: a number, and that combined is the cost of capital.
Speaker 1: And they want to make that rent that out. As
Speaker 1: Steve said, he want to rent it out, rent it out,
Speaker 1: and he wants to make some assurances. Bankers want to
Speaker 1: have some insurance. They've gotta get it back because they're
Speaker 1: just renting the money and they have to get it back,
Speaker 1: so they could rent it out to somebody else, and
Speaker 1: they need that profit that's inmbedded there? Did I do
Speaker 1: a decent job and going over two hundred years of
Speaker 1: banking and why banking has changed such that they should
Speaker 1: listen to what you're saying now about being the people's banker.
Speaker 3: Well, I think there are a lot of people like
Speaker 3: me in the industry, so I'm not special by any stretch.
Speaker 3: So begin with that. But the nature of what we
Speaker 3: do you describe very accurately. You know, these bank branches,
Speaker 3: there's a certain amount of cost in running the operation.
Speaker 3: So when we're renting money, it's the cost of the deposit,
Speaker 3: what's the interest paid on it, it's the overhead, and
Speaker 3: then there's a profit margin. But the nature of what
Speaker 3: we're doing is very competitive at thousands and thousands of
Speaker 3: banks and even more credit unions, and so the the
Speaker 3: the impetus to make more loans is in the business model.
Speaker 3: It's in the business. It's inherent in the business model.
Speaker 3: Good loans, so loans that will ultimately get repaid. And
Speaker 3: so whether it's a bank or credit unior, some other
Speaker 3: financial institution that does this type of business, I think
Speaker 3: there's a capacity inherent to extend credit and we certainly
Speaker 3: view that as an opportunity. Now we build relationships. We
Speaker 3: don't just make loans. We have checking accounts, we have
Speaker 3: credit cards or debit cards. Maybe have a mortgage or
Speaker 3: a home improvement loan. Maybe it's a small business loan
Speaker 3: or an SBA loan. Maybe we take care of some
Speaker 3: of the financial planning and investments that the family or
Speaker 3: the business wants to. Those sorts of things all add
Speaker 3: up to a relationship. And that's the nature of our
Speaker 3: business as opposed to well, we only make loans or
Speaker 3: we only take deposits. And so that comes back to
Speaker 3: people and relationships, and if you're trying to help people,
Speaker 3: if you're trying to look out for what's in their
Speaker 3: interests as well, because the better they do, the better
Speaker 3: we do. The better the communities we serve do, and
Speaker 3: the people in those communities, the better we do. We
Speaker 3: have some amount of market share every place we're doing business.
Speaker 3: The better that market does, that geography, that town, that city,
Speaker 3: that region, the better we do. So there's a lot
Speaker 3: of parallel interest in this equation. And I'm a big
Speaker 3: believer that in capitalism and that capitalism will continue to evolve.
Speaker 3: It will continue to I hope, have a conscious it'll
Speaker 3: continue to make opportunities available for people of all races,
Speaker 3: of all income walks of immigrants, and people that have
Speaker 3: been here multi generations.
Speaker 1: The Lift Local program in the context of what you
Speaker 1: just said, could be viewed, and this is I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about my new book Capitalism for All and its theory,
Speaker 1: it's philosophy of inclusive economics.
Speaker 2: Growth of market share could be views.
Speaker 1: Not only is it moral and the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: not only to help you comply with community investment actor
Speaker 1: or what other acts might be appropriate, but primarily, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking this, this is a business development activity. You're
Speaker 1: growing you like you're doing a research and development and
Speaker 1: business development for an emerging market. You're hoping. I hadn't
Speaker 1: put this together into this interview. Actually, Steve, as you
Speaker 1: were talking, you're hoping. My guess is you're hoping.
Speaker 5: That these these micro loans build a relationship with you
Speaker 5: and grow their business and join your portfolio as a
Speaker 5: mainstream slaw business loan, and then.
Speaker 1: Then go parallel park on individual family checking accounts and
Speaker 1: savings accounts, and parallel park and a home mortgage as
Speaker 1: they become a homeowner and multiple homeowners in that family,
Speaker 1: as they build wealth in parallel park in the investment
Speaker 1: banking group at Huntington, in parallel park in the private
Speaker 1: banking group, as you built well in parallel park with
Speaker 1: the investment management section of the I mean, am I
Speaker 1: getting this right? I mean, it's it's it's it's enlightened
Speaker 1: self interest.
Speaker 3: It is, it is, and it's it's in this umbrella though,
Speaker 3: of doing good, helping people, helping businesses. And so that's
Speaker 3: what your book on capitalism and what you've shared about
Speaker 3: enlightened capitalism over the years, all about this isn't a handout,
Speaker 3: This isn't a give away, right. This is intended to
Speaker 3: make good decisions that benefit people in businesses, but also
Speaker 3: benefit banks or other firms as they go forward. We
Speaker 3: don't have to be limited by historic thinking you used,
Speaker 3: you know, century and a half, two centuries ago, you know,
Speaker 3: lending just to people you really knew. There's a lot
Speaker 3: more information available now. The benefit of Lift Local and
Speaker 3: the training program you provide your team does is that
Speaker 3: there is a credible, third party national business resource available
Speaker 3: to help people understand what they need to do, what
Speaker 3: the expectations are if they're going to create a business.
Speaker 3: And it's not for everyone. I mean it's really hard,
Speaker 3: really hard. You were talking again about eighteen hours a day. Instance,
Speaker 3: you're nineteen. A lot of people, our children look at
Speaker 3: me and say, I don't want to work that hard,
Speaker 3: which is their decision. You may have something similar cousins
Speaker 3: or family members.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, oh yes, right, But.
Speaker 3: For me it's a privilege. I don't see it as work.
Speaker 3: I see it as something I'm fortunate to be able
Speaker 3: to do. And I think you feel the sandwich one and.
Speaker 1: I'm the most successful financially successful people in my person
Speaker 1: in my lineage, my direct lineage, going back to slavery
Speaker 1: to present. My second grade grandfather was a slave, as example.
Speaker 1: And my wife's the most successful person in her lineage,
Speaker 1: and her father is the most successful person in his
Speaker 1: lineage and mom, and we have a responsibility being in
Speaker 1: those positions to be compassion to be empathetic, but not
Speaker 1: to give handouts, because that doesn't help anybody.
Speaker 2: You want to get a hand up and you and and.
Speaker 1: To teach people how to to do for themselves and
Speaker 1: become independent. And yes, give them a little seedcorn, give
Speaker 1: them a little encouragement, a little support, but at some
Speaker 1: point you got to do for self. And one of
Speaker 1: the things I want the audience to understand is the
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that Operations Hope chose to not
Speaker 1: be bank itself. Well, first of all, I didn't want
Speaker 1: to compete with I didn't want to become the new
Speaker 1: Freedoman's Bank and compete with my friend and partner Steve Steinower,
Speaker 1: a hunting bank or whoever else, right, Uh, But I
Speaker 1: could be a unique catalyst as an educator, as a counselor,
Speaker 1: as a coach to get the people who are qualified
Speaker 1: morally but not mathematically. Their credit score stinks to me,
Speaker 1: he can't. Steve can't say it. He'll be sued. Somebody
Speaker 1: will find some way, some way to sue him. Is
Speaker 1: he's blunt, But I can be blunt. I'm not regulated
Speaker 1: like that. If your credit score is told from the
Speaker 1: flow up, Steve can't give you a loan, no matter
Speaker 1: how much he likes you. And if your in the
Speaker 1: average credit score for underserved population six hundred six point
Speaker 1: twenty six point forty for big swashes of this country,
Speaker 1: of all races, does not allow Steve to give you
Speaker 1: a decent home loan at fixed rates, at prime rates.
Speaker 1: He can't do it. He needs you at sixt eighty
Speaker 1: to seven hundred. He can't give you a small business
Speaker 1: loan because that's riskiest credit he's got, is a small
Speaker 1: business loan, even with an SBA guarantee. He needs you
Speaker 1: up in that seven hundred range if possible. Maybe he
Speaker 1: can make some exceptions, but you shouldn't be looking for
Speaker 1: the exception.
Speaker 2: You should be looking.
Speaker 1: Is better to underestimate and overperform than underestimating or to overestimated,
Speaker 1: underperform and Steve's and his people are looking for character
Speaker 1: and not just credit. And if they see you aspiring,
Speaker 1: seeing you working hard, seeing you trying, they may give
Speaker 1: you that secure credit card or that account that you
Speaker 1: actually don't really qualify but you're run on the edge,
Speaker 1: but they want to see you then perform and prove
Speaker 1: that they're right that go to the next level, then
Speaker 1: the next span your credit line. And I mean that's
Speaker 1: how it was for me coming up when I you know,
Speaker 1: and and we have an unsecure credit line, seven figure
Speaker 1: credit lines now, but I started out with a twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars credit line and operation to hope and
Speaker 1: a three hundred dollars credit card for me. So I'm
Speaker 1: telling you as a bridge to Steve and the one
Speaker 1: of the twenty largest bank in America and ten fardest
Speaker 1: commercial banks, I want you to be his client. I
Speaker 1: want him to know your name. I want brand Standards
Speaker 1: to call you and say, I'm just checking on you.
Speaker 1: That's one of his top people at the bank. I
Speaker 1: want Stacy to know who you are in the community.
Speaker 1: But you've got to do your part to meet him
Speaker 1: half way. Get the credit score up, the debt down,
Speaker 1: savings up, so you meet his criteria so he doesn't
Speaker 1: criticized by his regulator, the bank regulator. Did I explain
Speaker 1: your conumdrum and your opportunity reasonably?
Speaker 3: Will? You did, John very well? As usual, you know
Speaker 3: this so well. But you also offer a service to
Speaker 3: try and help people improve their credit score. And so
Speaker 3: let me turn the table here. So would with a
Speaker 3: question for you, would you share with your listeners some
Speaker 3: of the key ways they could do that, including working
Speaker 3: with your team. But there are there are a couple
Speaker 3: of steps in particularly, I think that they'd be common denominators.
Speaker 3: Why don't you share those if you want? Please?
Speaker 2: U sure?
Speaker 1: So when you walk into a hunting in bank branch,
Speaker 1: and by the way, what how many states are you?
Speaker 2: And Steve?
Speaker 3: Twenty one?
Speaker 2: Okay? And how many branches do you have?
Speaker 3: Just about fifteen hundred? And how many employees do you have?
Speaker 3: Twenty seven?
Speaker 2: So? And did I get the asset size right? Tw
Speaker 2: it and eighty.
Speaker 3: Billion two in an eighty plus. Yes, that's what I love.
Speaker 1: When you get the power you don't need to use,
Speaker 1: it's like yeah, yes, give or take. It's much more
Speaker 1: than By the way, if you want their attention, uh,
Speaker 1: you've got to show intention. You've got to show that
Speaker 1: you are credible. And they have limits regulatorily and statutorially
Speaker 1: and with their shareholders about how far they can lean
Speaker 1: into your life without putting themselves at risk. We bridge you,
Speaker 1: We bridge them, so you ever look for hope inside
Speaker 1: inside of hunting in the bank if you can find it,
Speaker 1: or another institution, because you know they will take a
Speaker 1: referral from another institution. By the way, and we can
Speaker 1: get your credit score up initially by removing an error
Speaker 1: if you have if you haven't checked your credit in
Speaker 1: a couple of years, and that's a good portion of Americans,
Speaker 1: there's a large possibility, significant possibility you have an.
Speaker 2: Error on your credit report.
Speaker 1: If we challenge the three credit bureaus by sending a
Speaker 1: letter I opperation to hope with your cooperation, the credit
Speaker 1: bureaus have thirty days to respond to either confirm at
Speaker 1: you or remove it. If they remove it, which happens
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the time, that popped a credit thirty
Speaker 1: points on average. So if you were at five eighty year,
Speaker 1: now at sixteen, if you were at six hundred year,
Speaker 1: now at six thirty. So the banker now sees oh
Speaker 1: my god, you're making improvements. They note your file, and
Speaker 1: so then we start working on a budget. He talked
Speaker 1: about his dad didn't have a budget, he had a
Speaker 1: he had all kind of other challenges deal with. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get to that his personal story in the minute.
Speaker 1: I didn't know his backstory. But we're going to help
Speaker 1: you create see a budget.
Speaker 2: And when we.
Speaker 1: Do that, you're gonna find if you're spending a lot
Speaker 1: of money on Starbucks or whatever it is you're spending
Speaker 1: on that, you can go get a curate machine at home,
Speaker 1: make your own coffee. Stop smoking it's gonna kill you anyway,
Speaker 1: and save six thousand dollars a year. And if you're
Speaker 1: making forty thousand dollars a year, well, heck that's you know,
Speaker 1: more than ten percent of your annual income, and you
Speaker 1: can recycle that at the savings. You can lower your
Speaker 1: debt to income ratio, which is what they're looking for,
Speaker 1: and get and get a saving out going. And then
Speaker 1: we give you the earned income tax credit. Was you
Speaker 1: making let's sixty thousand dollars a year? By the way, black, white, red, brown, yellow,
Speaker 1: urban world doesn't matter. Uh. One o four Americans who
Speaker 1: qualify for that never asked for it. That's if you
Speaker 1: make it thirty eight thousand dollars a year, and in
Speaker 1: Central Ohio as a teacher and you have three children,
Speaker 1: the government owes you a check for about seven thousand
Speaker 1: dollars if you never filed its retroactive for three years.
Speaker 1: That's almost twenty thousand dollars you can use as the
Speaker 1: down payment on the house from workers you're asking Steve
Speaker 1: Steinauer for from Huntingdon Bank.
Speaker 2: And and then this goes on and goes on and
Speaker 2: goes on.
Speaker 1: We can find credit, we can find you know, you
Speaker 1: got a divorce ten years ago. That charge off of
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars has probably been discounted significantly because they've
Speaker 1: been chasing the debt and they sold it to Joe's
Speaker 1: Finance company or something for five cents on the dollar. Well,
Speaker 1: Steve's only concerned about where you where you resolved that.
Speaker 1: So work with the operation to hope we'll contact Joe's
Speaker 1: finance company who over owns it, will buy it, We'll
Speaker 1: pay it off. You're gonna pay it off if we
Speaker 1: negotiate it, and you're gonna get a discount, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna get a profit, and Steve's gonna get this removed
Speaker 1: from your credit report in a way that he can
Speaker 1: say yes to you. In other words, now your credit
Speaker 1: score goes up again. So we're gonna be the bridge
Speaker 1: and the translator for you to do what you don't
Speaker 1: know you can do, and to help you do and
Speaker 1: help the bank do what they can't do, so the
Speaker 1: bank can tell you yes. The bank does not benefit
Speaker 1: if they can't say yes every day to providing capital
Speaker 1: and credit cannot grow. So oh, I answered that question intelligently, Steve. Steve,
Speaker 1: your background, how'd you become such a decent human being?
Speaker 1: Let's unpack this. I just the more I like, the
Speaker 1: more I hang around you, the more I like. You
Speaker 1: tell us where you grew up, how you grew up,
Speaker 1: and how'd you get here as a human being.
Speaker 3: Well, I grew one of five, second oldest, and you know,
Speaker 3: family didn't have much and so they did have a
Speaker 3: sense of self worth and they were active in their
Speaker 3: own ways in the community. So I had some role
Speaker 3: models in that regard growing up, and I probably didn't
Speaker 3: deserve the education opportunity I got, but somehow they figured
Speaker 3: out how to get five of us through a parochial
Speaker 3: education and that was very discipline based and that was
Speaker 3: good for me because I I might have gone astray.
Speaker 5: But for.
Speaker 3: I refer to them as sisters of no mercy and
Speaker 3: they didn't have any on me early on in life,
Speaker 3: and so I and I needed it. So anyway, that
Speaker 3: that all led to to uh uh you know, a
Speaker 3: route where I was in a position with grandparents and
Speaker 3: parents and seeing that you know, we didn't think we
Speaker 3: were poor. We prayed for the poor. We didn't know better.
Speaker 3: Tell me about all my dad always had most of
Speaker 3: my life, had two jobs. I worked five and a
Speaker 3: half six days a week and my mother worked as well,
Speaker 3: So you know, it was just expected.
Speaker 2: Did they tell you they loved you?
Speaker 1: Of course yes, so you heard that in the house
Speaker 1: you didn't have money, but you had you had love.
Speaker 1: And even though your dad had these challenges, was he
Speaker 1: able to work around that to still embrace you?
Speaker 2: And it was?
Speaker 1: It was in other words, was it was the challenges
Speaker 1: in the household a hindrance or just something that you
Speaker 1: guys managed through and you somehow understood even despite that
Speaker 1: he loved you.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 3: Uh. Addiction is uh problematic for the people around because
Speaker 3: it's hard to understand, particularly as a as a child.
Speaker 3: Uh and you had some of this too as you
Speaker 3: were growing up, John, So, uh, you know what I'm
Speaker 3: talking You know what I'm talking about. And unfortunately, when
Speaker 3: I was in college, he caught himself. He decided only
Speaker 3: that the person with the addiction can do this. He
Speaker 3: caught himself and he had another I don't know, seven
Speaker 3: eight years of largely a sober lifestyle, slip, slip now
Speaker 3: and then and then come back. But uh, you know,
Speaker 3: it took a lot of will because he he uh
Speaker 3: he he uh he imbibed uh uh for many many
Speaker 3: years and so it took a lot of There was
Speaker 3: strength of character, strength of will there that that brought
Speaker 3: him around. So in some ways a role model. And
Speaker 3: it caused me to to uh study addiction and you know,
Speaker 3: Alcoholics Anonymous and other material that might have been available
Speaker 3: back in the late seventies and early eighties and get
Speaker 3: some basic level of what was what he was struggling with.
Speaker 3: And so it made me somewhat more aware and sensitive
Speaker 3: to issues ultimately including mental health.
Speaker 1: Yes, what I the reason I wanted the backstory and
Speaker 1: Steve and I do have this in common. My mom
Speaker 1: and dad voice over money, and there was domestic abuse
Speaker 1: in the house, and they told me they loved me,
Speaker 1: and I believed it. My mother told me she loved
Speaker 1: me every day in my life. My dad loved me too.
Speaker 1: I'm a businessman and an entrepreneur to my dad was
Speaker 1: a businessman and a hustler, and he was a businessman
Speaker 1: because his dad was a sharecropper and all that. But
Speaker 1: I wanted the audience to hear and for those watching
Speaker 1: this on visual media to see that whether you're black
Speaker 1: in urban or white in Midwestern, it's the same experience
Speaker 1: and it's commonality of those experiences that build bonds and
Speaker 1: relationships and friendships and understanding. Don't make presumptions. Don't make assumptions.
Speaker 1: Just because this guy's running one of the top ten
Speaker 1: commercial banks and top twenty banks in America doesn't mean
Speaker 1: he hasn't had challenges and doesn't mean he doesn't understand
Speaker 1: you and doesn't care. When you assume that he doesn't care,
Speaker 1: you've lost. So that's why I want people to hear
Speaker 1: your backstory. As we wrap up, and Steve, I really
Speaker 1: have enjoyed this. I'd like you to spend the last
Speaker 1: four to five minutes just riffing, Just what are the
Speaker 1: lessons the points that you want that you've always you know,
Speaker 1: we're all forer frustrated teachers a little bit, you know,
Speaker 1: you rattle, you know, you and I talk about so
Speaker 1: many things. We don't have time that we talk about
Speaker 1: the state of this country and how divided it is
Speaker 1: and all that. We don't have time to get in
Speaker 1: all of that because it's as an hour season all
Speaker 1: by itself. But all the things we can control in
Speaker 1: our lives, the controls, what are some of the things
Speaker 1: that you just it frustrates the bejeebers out of you
Speaker 1: that you really just wish people would get their hands
Speaker 1: on X, Y and z or or or if they
Speaker 1: if you just they just would do this week before
Speaker 1: they came to the bank.
Speaker 2: Or what what what?
Speaker 1: Whatever you want to say, I want people to get
Speaker 1: five minutes of uninterrupted wisdom from you.
Speaker 3: Well, successful people have some common traits. They don't give up,
Speaker 3: right because you don't. Success is very rarely is it
Speaker 3: a straight line. Normally, there's a lot of hardship, setbacks, failure,
Speaker 3: But you don't give up. They're driven and they they
Speaker 3: channel that drive somehow into something productive. In my case,
Speaker 3: it was a design to get better, to learn, and
Speaker 3: to see a world bigger than three thousand people, which
Speaker 3: was the size of the town I grew up in,
Speaker 3: and and and get the benefit of of of of
Speaker 3: being able to be with really interesting and great people
Speaker 3: like you, John, and with all that you've done. And
Speaker 3: so I've had a lot of blessings in my life,
Speaker 3: but there've also been hardships and and and yet not
Speaker 3: letting those hardships define who you are, figure out ways
Speaker 3: to rise above them, work around them, don't quit, don't quit.
Speaker 3: And if you if you believe in yourself, you may
Speaker 3: not know where you're going. I had no idea in
Speaker 3: my case, but I knew I wanted more and I
Speaker 3: would work hard for it, and I was going to
Speaker 3: live my life with certain principles. And I've generally been
Speaker 3: able to do that for the last sixty seven years.
Speaker 3: And so I feel very fortunate that I had some
Speaker 3: people along the way who influenced me early on grandparents,
Speaker 3: often on parents, and many others, including people like you,
Speaker 3: who've devoted their life to trying to help others. And
Speaker 3: I've had because of my profession, I've had the opportunity
Speaker 3: in different areas of the country to meet just some
Speaker 3: phenomenal people who have really devoted their life to helping others.
Speaker 3: And so I admire you, I admire them. I learned
Speaker 3: from you and them, and I want to keep getting better.
Speaker 3: And I hope I've got a bit of a road
Speaker 3: in front of me and an opportunity to influence others
Speaker 3: and if you will pay it forward, because I've had
Speaker 3: a wonderful set of opportunities that somehow came my way.
Speaker 3: I don't know how it happened, but you know, we
Speaker 3: have some common elements. Work hard, care, do the right thing,
Speaker 3: try and get better, try and help others. And those
Speaker 3: are some of the essential elements that as I think
Speaker 3: about my life, have marked it and have created the
Speaker 3: executive and the person that I am. I should say
Speaker 3: person and the executive put it in the other order,
Speaker 3: just as you've defined yourself as a person and then
Speaker 3: an incredibly successful entrepreneur and executive by all the different
Speaker 3: things you've done. But it's you as a person in
Speaker 3: the first instance. And I think people generally want to
Speaker 3: do the right thing, they just don't always catch themselves.
Speaker 3: And I think if we start with a basis of
Speaker 3: I want to do good. I want to help others.
Speaker 3: I want to help myself, but in help helping myself,
Speaker 3: I want to help others. It can align into for
Speaker 3: those fortunate to be the next John Hope Bryans and
Speaker 3: maybe when I retire a successor here at Huntington something.
Speaker 3: It's been a pleasure to be with you, John.
Speaker 1: It's been my pleasure. As we wrap up, I'm gonnaee
Speaker 1: if I can summarize what I just heard. Give been
Speaker 1: focusing more focused on what you give than what you get.
Speaker 1: Understand that no one's perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. You can
Speaker 1: make a mistake and not be one. Never give up,
Speaker 1: never give in. Live for something larger and more important
Speaker 1: than yourself. Have a purpose. Those are some of the
Speaker 1: things that I heard. Of Course, be authentic. If somebody's
Speaker 1: calling Huntington Bank, if you are near one of its
Speaker 1: branches or whatever, uh, and you want to access capital
Speaker 1: with this bank, don't play a game. Call them, be
Speaker 1: honest with them. They're going to find out anyway, right,
Speaker 1: Just be straight and you're gonna get credit for being straight.
Speaker 2: Is that right, Steve?
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right. And there may be a period
Speaker 3: where we just can't do something but my colleagues, not
Speaker 3: all of them, but they are a number that we'll
Speaker 3: engage and work with and try and help and ultimately
Speaker 3: we'll create a success, whether that's a first time home
Speaker 3: or first time business or other things.
Speaker 1: Or left local. So so thank you very much, Steve Steinauer.
Speaker 1: He's got to go run one of the twenty largest
Speaker 1: overall banks in America and to have have ten commercial banks,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate him giving us an hour to unpack
Speaker 1: the mysteries of banking and to replace it with the
Speaker 1: stairsteps of your success. Steve, I'll see you at a
Speaker 1: meeting around town. I'm sure run into you in the
Speaker 1: next thirty days somewhere.
Speaker 2: I love you very much, brother. And this has been
Speaker 2: Money and Wealth on the.
Speaker 1: Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio, Go Change Your Life. Money
Speaker 1: and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of the
Speaker 1: Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black
Speaker 1: Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.