Speaker 1: Welcome The Money and Wealth with John O'Bryant, a production
Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Yo. Yo
Speaker 1: is John O'Bryant, and this is the Money and Wealth
Speaker 1: podcast series on iHeartRadio, brought to you by the Black
Speaker 1: Effect Network. And I'm an excited today about this podcast.
Speaker 1: It's how I fail. That's right. Everybody thinks about and
Speaker 1: talks about. I don't know they think about it, but
Speaker 1: they talk about when they introduced me, they talk about
Speaker 1: my successes when I give a speech or in a meeting.
Speaker 1: I'm very honored. I guess some people are proud of
Speaker 1: me and they talk about all of my successes. But
Speaker 1: I'm not defined by my successes. No one, no so
Speaker 1: called successful person. It's defined by their successes. You're defined
Speaker 1: by how you manage your failures. Right, life is ten
Speaker 1: percent what life does to you and ninety percent how
Speaker 1: you choose to respond to it. What's your response going
Speaker 1: to be? You've heard me say, if you listen to
Speaker 1: me at all, that I take no for vitamins. I
Speaker 1: believe the success is going from failure to failure without
Speaker 1: loss of enthusiasm, over around it and through it. I'm
Speaker 1: going to get to it. Nothing is going to keep
Speaker 1: me down or hold me back. Nothing. Now that's great philosophy.
Speaker 1: Now you've heard me say again, if you listen or
Speaker 1: follow my podcast, you've heard me say that rainbows only
Speaker 1: follow storms. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm. First,
Speaker 1: all these things you've heard me say. If you listen
Speaker 1: followed me, you've heard me say these things. But they
Speaker 1: sound like plastitudes. They sound like something out of a
Speaker 1: serial box. They sound like some motivational series, you know,
Speaker 1: motivational saying that maybe I got from reading a book
Speaker 1: or listening to some motivational speaker. Not no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. You've heard me say I was homeless. If
Speaker 1: you listen to me. That doesn't seem to resonate with people.
Speaker 1: They think it's something, Oh you know, that was really homeless.
Speaker 1: I'll get into that and another part of this podcast,
Speaker 1: not this one today. This one is specifically around my
Speaker 1: business failure. It's going to be again How I Failed.
Speaker 1: This is part one, so there'll be several parts of
Speaker 1: How I Failed. And this one's called falling Forward. I
Speaker 1: want anybody watching this who's trying to be aspirational in
Speaker 1: business or trying to pursue a career or trying to
Speaker 1: pursue an occupation, certainly trying to do something that no
Speaker 1: one's ever done before people say that you cannot do.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to be discouraged. I want you
Speaker 1: to be encouraged. I want you to know that that
Speaker 1: you can do anything that you set your mind to. Right,
Speaker 1: And this is a lot about mindset. My last book,
Speaker 1: Financial Literacy for All, and I want everybody has not
Speaker 1: already bought it to buy it. It's number It came
Speaker 1: out number one in business or nonfiction on on Publisher's
Speaker 1: Clearinghouse in USA today, number I think eight or nine
Speaker 1: overall in USA today, top you know, top ten when
Speaker 1: it came out, and it's still number one in several
Speaker 1: categories online including Amazon, in business and economics and business finance. Right,
Speaker 1: and so here's here's a personal color who's achieving bestseller
Speaker 1: status as a friend of mine, who CEO of a
Speaker 1: bank said, without being an economist, bestseller status and he's
Speaker 1: not an economist. And if you have a guest, I'm black.
Speaker 1: So you know, did a bunch of stuff the people
Speaker 1: said cannot be done. But again, this is focusing on
Speaker 1: supposedly my successes. I'm telling you that my successes were defined,
Speaker 1: or my successes were made easier or achievable, because of
Speaker 1: how I manage my failures. And I've always tried to
Speaker 1: fall forward, but I have fallen. I have gotten very
Speaker 1: close to the edge several times. My credit. I know
Speaker 1: what a bad credit score is. I had one. My
Speaker 1: credit was toe up from the flow up. I was
Speaker 1: so poor at one point I couldn't afford to o R.
Speaker 1: I wasn't poor. I was just poh po yes me,
Speaker 1: John O'Briant. So let's now get into the details right again.
Speaker 1: This book Financial Literacy for All. If you haven't bought
Speaker 1: the book, buy one for yourself. If you already own
Speaker 1: one yourself. I want you to get a book, put
Speaker 1: it in the name of your family, write the name
Speaker 1: of your family or your name on the inside of
Speaker 1: the book, and donate that book to a title one school,
Speaker 1: a poor, struggling underserved school, and it's not struggling school,
Speaker 1: but an under resource school in your neighborhood, or a
Speaker 1: public library in your name, and then offer to go
Speaker 1: in and volunteer and teach. Because kids model what they see.
Speaker 1: Watch how you live your life. It may be the
Speaker 1: only Bible that anybody else reads. Can I get an amen?
Speaker 1: People model what they see, and I want you to
Speaker 1: help give these kids something different to see. The book
Speaker 1: before this was up from Nothing, My person, no story,
Speaker 1: the closest thing to an autobiography of my life. So far,
Speaker 1: I've got six books, three of which were absolute bestsellers
Speaker 1: for technical bestsellers. And in that book I talk about
Speaker 1: in the book before that, the memo talk about mindset. Well,
Speaker 1: the memo is the business plan we never got from
Speaker 1: Nothing deals a lot with mindset. And my failure is
Speaker 1: not my success is financial literacy for all is your toolbox,
Speaker 1: the operational software to succeed. But I wanted to weave
Speaker 1: together the rest of these. The rest of this rest
Speaker 1: is fabric for you, because all too often, when somebody
Speaker 1: becomes successful, you don't relate to them anymore, or you
Speaker 1: don't think you do. You admire them, you maybe you
Speaker 1: want to be like them, but maybe you don't think
Speaker 1: you can achieve what they've achieved, because well, all you
Speaker 1: see is success, and that's not the way this thing works.
Speaker 1: Hank Aaron, who lived around the corner from me, got
Speaker 1: rest his soul. His wife Billy Aeron's this friend of
Speaker 1: our family. We hang out with her. God rest his soul.
Speaker 1: You know, Hank Aaron have the record for the rost
Speaker 1: the most what home runs. He also had the record
Speaker 1: for the most strikeouts. You cannot hit a ball that
Speaker 1: that that has not swung at. Success has a thousand mothers.
Speaker 1: But failure is a bastard child. It's an old Southern quote.
Speaker 1: No one's going to remember your failures, so don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. They will celebrate you. They will they will salute,
Speaker 1: they will apply, or they will be jealous of your successes.
Speaker 1: But but but success is the greatest revenge, and haters
Speaker 1: make you better. So don't focus on what other people say,
Speaker 1: don't focus on what you think you cannot do. Don't
Speaker 1: focus on your so called failures. You're not a failure.
Speaker 1: You just had an experiment that didn't end well. You're
Speaker 1: not a mistake. You might have made a mistake. We're
Speaker 1: all angels with dirty faces, right. A saint is a
Speaker 1: sinner that got up. Are we preaching yet? Okay, let's
Speaker 1: get into this first How I Felt series Part one,
Speaker 1: which is falling forward and specifically this is my operation Hope. Now,
Speaker 1: anybody knows me knows I've created forty or fifty enterprises.
Speaker 1: They're currently five or six divisions of my organization, John
Speaker 1: O'Brien Holdings, which includes Operation Hope, Brian Group Digital Media,
Speaker 1: Brian Group Real Estate, Branker Adventures, Brkup Advisors. That's all
Speaker 1: part of Brian Group Ventures. It's something I'm missing doing.
Speaker 1: I'm doing too much stuff my affordable housing division. But
Speaker 1: anybody who knows me right, you know I'm absolutely passionate
Speaker 1: about Operation Hope and it's the biggest organizati of it's
Speaker 1: kind in the country today. It's the largest nonprofit financial
Speaker 1: literacy coaching organization in America. We raise four point five
Speaker 1: billion dollars for the underserved millions of clients. We have
Speaker 1: offices in almost every state in the country, certainly over
Speaker 1: forty of the states, hundreds of cities, and I'll get
Speaker 1: into the scale in a minute, but I'll just tell
Speaker 1: you we have fifteen hundred physical and satellite locations, where
Speaker 1: the largest by far in the country. Annual budget just
Speaker 1: to that part of my operations, that budget is seventy
Speaker 1: million dollars plus. When you roll up all of my
Speaker 1: different entities, we probably have you know, ninety million, give
Speaker 1: or take of annual turnover, annual economic activity, and directed
Speaker 1: four point seven four point eight billion dollars worth of
Speaker 1: capital into underserved neighborhoods prime capital. But it wasn't always
Speaker 1: this way. It was dang hard when I started with
Speaker 1: a sixty one thousand dollars operating budget in south central
Speaker 1: LA with Operation Hope after the Rotten King riots in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two, And when I started in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: two and actually that that sixty one thousand dollars operating
Speaker 1: budget was the success of that year. I actually started
Speaker 1: with the budget of zero. I had to borrow the
Speaker 1: money from my own company to start it because no
Speaker 1: one believed in it. People actually laughed at me. They
Speaker 1: literally laughed at me and said this will never work,
Speaker 1: and roll their eyes, Oh, here comes John O'Brien financial literacy, capitalism. Oh,
Speaker 1: they just would roll their eyes at me. And like,
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't doing what everybody else was doing.
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing it the way they were doing it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to help our community in a way
Speaker 1: that my community was used to being helped. They were
Speaker 1: used to seeing somebody trying to offer them a hand out,
Speaker 1: not a hand up. And none of these solutions that
Speaker 1: they were seeing were what I call scalable solutions. They
Speaker 1: weren't tied to a business plan. They certainly weren't tied
Speaker 1: to capitalism. Government has been the fairest and most equitable
Speaker 1: friend to the underserved communities, and specifically the black community
Speaker 1: sent slavery and Jim crow Era and so folks rightly,
Speaker 1: so understandably so on civil rights and the government. And
Speaker 1: here comes a guy talking about silv rights and free
Speaker 1: enterprise and capitalism, the one thing that actually has the
Speaker 1: eluded people or dogged them, or treated them badly, or
Speaker 1: undercut them or preyed on them because they never got
Speaker 1: the memo on money, free enterprise, and financial literacy. As
Speaker 1: I've said before, with the Freedom's Bank of eighteen sixty five, right,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, said all good reasons right free
Speaker 1: enterprises not been their friend. I mean, redlining was only
Speaker 1: in black communities. The Homestead Act didn't touch black and
Speaker 1: brown people. Nine nine percent of that went to my
Speaker 1: mainstream brothers and sisters who got all that land, which
Speaker 1: represents ten percent of America. The Field Action fifteen, which
Speaker 1: we call forty acres in the meal lasted basically a year.
Speaker 1: I mean Lincoln authorized through Secretary of War Stanton in
Speaker 1: General Sherman in eighteen sixty five January was Field actually
Speaker 1: fifteen and Savannah, Georgia. That allocated four hundred thousand acres
Speaker 1: in North Carolina, etc. That area along the coast. We
Speaker 1: worked at Land so hard. The next month came a
Speaker 1: mule as a reward for it. Being industrious Black people
Speaker 1: being industrious. We didn't ask for a handout. We wanted
Speaker 1: to do for ourselves. We wanted the James Brown version
Speaker 1: of affirmative action to open the door. I'll get it myself.
Speaker 1: I'm starting to preach. I guarantee them we get the
Speaker 1: details here in a minute. And the next month Abraham
Speaker 1: Lincoln signed the Freeman's Bureau Act, which created the Freedman's Bank,
Speaker 1: amongst other things, created Freedman's hospitals and freedman's learning facilities.
Speaker 1: Land Grant universities came after that. You know what we
Speaker 1: now call HBCUs historically Black colleges. Universities came after that,
Speaker 1: But a Freeman's Bank was created that third month January
Speaker 1: of the Land February. The mule marched the bank, and
Speaker 1: then he promised blacks the right to vote. And Abraham
Speaker 1: Lincoln was assassinated in April, which oddly enough, was financial
Speaker 1: literacy month every year in the modern era. And oddly enough,
Speaker 1: April was also the month that doctor King was assassinated
Speaker 1: when he pivoted toward money. So I understand that that
Speaker 1: was the Poor People's campaign in nineteen sixty eight where
Speaker 1: he was standing next to my mentor, my dear friend,
Speaker 1: Ambassador Andrew Young, the last living lieutenant of doctor King.
Speaker 1: Is doctor King, the Dreamer was assassinated. They assassinated the Dreamer,
Speaker 1: but not the dream nineteen sixty eight April, which is
Speaker 1: the last time that we really took a serious focus
Speaker 1: on money. And here was a pastor talking about money, right,
Speaker 1: So he was talking about talking about a redistribution of
Speaker 1: wealth versus a creation of wealth. And I actually think
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons he was assassinated, if not
Speaker 1: the primary reason is he was going to Washington, DC
Speaker 1: to get his checked. It was a march for jobs
Speaker 1: and freedom. Hello, a march for jobs and freedom. Jobs, Hello,
Speaker 1: jobs first. Right, we live in a free enterprise democracy,
Speaker 1: and doctor King knew it, and they killed him before
Speaker 1: he got his first marsh assassinated him. So in the
Speaker 1: backdrop of all this, here comes this young man from
Speaker 1: South Centro, La Me talking about free enterprise, talking about capitalism,
Speaker 1: talking about you know, we can set ourselves free. In
Speaker 1: the backdrop of the story of just the modest history
Speaker 1: I just told you. Now, I didn't even go into
Speaker 1: post slavery talk about the Jim Crow situation and sharecropping
Speaker 1: which my grandfather RB. Smith. I cover this in the
Speaker 1: book Up from Nothing, and I mentioned it again in
Speaker 1: Financial Literacy for All. RB. Smith born in eighteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: was born into sharecropping where you work the land, but
Speaker 1: you never own it, and you can't get out of debt.
Speaker 1: It's like payday lending times one hundred, okay. And so
Speaker 1: I understand the trials and tribulations, and again I don't
Speaker 1: all the false promises. You know, Affirmative action created for
Speaker 1: African Americans, which was a watered down version of true
Speaker 1: economic empowerment that came after the War on Poverty from
Speaker 1: Johnson who would put a real money and real resources
Speaker 1: to try to make things right. And then of course
Speaker 1: of Vietnam War got him distracted, sapped him in the
Speaker 1: nation of its energy and his resources, and he shut
Speaker 1: these programs down. And so the affirmative action was a
Speaker 1: pivot after that, and that was watered down by the
Speaker 1: courts shut down, and that then thanked God left to
Speaker 1: at least the empowerment of women. And it was initially
Speaker 1: a white women who been from affirmative action, and that
Speaker 1: was nineteen seventy two. Nineteen seventy four covered that in
Speaker 1: a Time magazine article I wrote on the Untapped power
Speaker 1: of Women and how women changed America and changed by
Speaker 1: extension of the world in nineteen seventies and to this
Speaker 1: day or twenty five percent of the GDP gross domestic
Speaker 1: product in this country. Once again, these are just some
Speaker 1: antidotes on what has held up African Americans in particular.
Speaker 1: But whether you're African American or Latino or Asian and
Speaker 1: from an underserved part of Asia and part group of Asians,
Speaker 1: don't get that were not you did not come here
Speaker 1: to America with enormous resources or help from home or relatives,
Speaker 1: or if you're poor white. I mean, there's all these
Speaker 1: groups that were left behind who may not subscribe to
Speaker 1: this model that I was professing. By the way, out
Speaker 1: of all the ethnic groups in this country, and there
Speaker 1: were a couple hundred of them, There are a couple
Speaker 1: hundred of them that you can identify in this country
Speaker 1: that used mostly used free enterprise and capitalism to come up.
Speaker 1: Only three groups that were left behind did not use
Speaker 1: those tools. African Americans, not African Caribbeans and African Africans,
Speaker 1: African Americans right, Native American Indians, and poor whites. So
Speaker 1: here I am coming out with regard to one of
Speaker 1: these groups, African Americans. Initially, we now serve all three
Speaker 1: of those groups. By the way, we just opened a
Speaker 1: hop inside on a Native American mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's a reservation, but it serves a reservation land.
Speaker 1: We just opened that up with Wells Fargo. Recently. We
Speaker 1: also serve poor white communities with First Horizon Bank and
Speaker 1: Region's Banks and others in the South and Truist, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But most of our locations have served the underserved African
Speaker 1: American population, a population that absolutely rejected what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about for good reason. But nothing kept me down and
Speaker 1: nothing stopped me. I knew I had a vision, and
Speaker 1: I knew it would work because it was a radical
Speaker 1: movement of common sense. But today I now recognized I
Speaker 1: was professing something that ambats young Bess young in the
Speaker 1: brain that my friend Quincy Jones told me, which was prophetic.
Speaker 1: He said, John, it takes twenty years to change a culture.
Speaker 1: Twenty years to change a culture. So it's what you're
Speaker 1: about to hear is an overnight success in twenty years.
Speaker 1: So if you're listening to this in your car, you're
Speaker 1: about to get to the good part. I hopefully inspired
Speaker 1: you with the first part. If you are pressed for time,
Speaker 1: but you've listened to this thus far, and you want
Speaker 1: your girlfriend or your best friend and your guy friend
Speaker 1: or your child to listen to this, but they have
Speaker 1: less time than you, you tell them to start at
Speaker 1: the seventeen minute mark, because that's when John gets to
Speaker 1: the goods on the how, what and where of how
Speaker 1: he failed part one and how he fell forward. Here
Speaker 1: we go. So I found an Operation Hope in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two after the Rodney King riots. I will save
Speaker 1: the overall How'd I get it done? How'd I start?
Speaker 1: Story for a separate podcast that I will do on
Speaker 1: how I built Operation Hope? So wait for that one.
Speaker 1: My first failure so I raised sixty one thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: By the way, why am my bipartisan? I got it
Speaker 1: from a mayor who was the Democratic, who got it
Speaker 1: from a president who was Republican. Mayor Tom Bradley of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles asked then President George H. W. Bush, a Republican,
Speaker 1: on his way out, for to help this young man.
Speaker 1: And it was only sixty one thousand dollars left in
Speaker 1: the outcoming outgoing Bush administration in the SBA that the
Speaker 1: President can get his hands on. And I will forever
Speaker 1: be thankful for those two gentlemen for helping me get
Speaker 1: started with a sixty one thousand dollars grant. I got
Speaker 1: it from the SBA, a seven j grant, So I
Speaker 1: started Operation Up with that and plus some loans money
Speaker 1: I loaned Operation Hope. I then got a chance to
Speaker 1: get a six hundred thousand dollars grant from I forget
Speaker 1: the name of the company, and probably Good I don't
Speaker 1: remember their name. Actually, I think it was a US Trust.
Speaker 1: It was either US Trust or Northern Trust. And I
Speaker 1: had apply for grant for six hundred thousand dollars, ten
Speaker 1: percent ten times my budget that time, and I got
Speaker 1: an approval right is right. At the riticking riots, I
Speaker 1: was ecstatic. And then I found out that a councilman
Speaker 1: who I will not name because he is still a
Speaker 1: fixture in Los Angeles. I don't want to make I
Speaker 1: don't want to embarrass him. But I was an advisor
Speaker 1: to this councilman in south central LA. And as long
Speaker 1: as I was serving his district and him and his
Speaker 1: political needs, he was cool with me. But I said,
Speaker 1: my letter had said, you know, Opera Shope was going
Speaker 1: to eradicate poverty in the world. And he's like, no,
Speaker 1: You're going to eradicate poverty in my district. And I
Speaker 1: was like, no, I mean, I'll include your district, but
Speaker 1: it's going to be in the world. Never shrink yourself
Speaker 1: to appeal to somebody who is small minded. Always stands
Speaker 1: your ground on purpose. If you never go wrong doing right,
Speaker 1: even if you win the battle, even if you if
Speaker 1: they win the battle, you're going to win the war.
Speaker 1: Or put another way, they may win the battle, but
Speaker 1: you will win the war. So this person called the
Speaker 1: Bank committee head and and showed them a letter of
Speaker 1: resignation from my early board, my first board, uh and
Speaker 1: discouraged them for giving me this grant. And you know,
Speaker 1: they canceled that grant six hundred thousand dollars and I
Speaker 1: needed it. I had already planned for to spend it,
Speaker 1: and they canceled that grant. I was devastated, as you know,
Speaker 1: but over mess and not in it, over and around it,
Speaker 1: through it. You're gonna get through it now. Most people
Speaker 1: to threw their hands up right there, you're already you're
Speaker 1: already at least office space, You've hired people, you've you know,
Speaker 1: you've got you know, here's this big bank that's given
Speaker 1: you a commitment. You were an excellent grant proposal, and
Speaker 1: you did everything right, did all the work and for politics.
Speaker 1: And this person I'm talking about looked like me, by
Speaker 1: the way, who told the bank no, told the bank
Speaker 1: you shouldn't do this. And he was the baller in
Speaker 1: that area in that time, and the bank didn't the bank.
Speaker 1: The bank turned down my grant, and I had to
Speaker 1: find my own ground again, renew myself, find my sense
Speaker 1: of enthusiasm and passion. This is where self esteem is
Speaker 1: so important. Self esteem is different from confidence. Confidence is
Speaker 1: confidence leaned out into the world. Self esteem is how
Speaker 1: you esteem yourself you've heard me say it before, I
Speaker 1: say it again. If I don't like me, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna like you. If I don't feel good about me,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna feel good about you. If I don't
Speaker 1: respect me, don't expect me to respect you. If I
Speaker 1: don't love me, I don't have a clue how to
Speaker 1: love you. And here's a big one. If I don't
Speaker 1: have a purpose in my life, I'm gonna make your
Speaker 1: life a living hell. Whatever goes around comes around. But
Speaker 1: I was full of love, and I was full of
Speaker 1: My mother wanted to Smith, told me she loved me
Speaker 1: every day of my life. And as Quincy Jones again
Speaker 1: one said to me in another time, not went out
Speaker 1: to my self esteem or self worth depends on your
Speaker 1: acceptance of me. So it wasn't about other people deserving love.
Speaker 1: Love is what I had to offer. And so I
Speaker 1: ignored the fact that this gentleman had did me wrong,
Speaker 1: and I assumed he meant well, he just wanted to
Speaker 1: do things his way, and I got in the way.
Speaker 1: And often you're going to be an accidental obstacle to
Speaker 1: somebody else who's trying to get the power, to get
Speaker 1: the money, whatever, and you're in the way. Don't take it.
Speaker 1: Personal business is not personal businesses business. It's a glad.
Speaker 1: Capitalism is a gladiator sport. Capitalism and power are gladiator sports,
Speaker 1: and they're not for the faint of heart. And as
Speaker 1: you get further and further up that heel, the real
Speaker 1: estate gets smaller and smaller. You get further further up
Speaker 1: the heel, and you have people with bigger and bigger
Speaker 1: ambitions who want to be at the top of that
Speaker 1: heel and will knock you over, kick you slip, make
Speaker 1: you slipt, put putty, group putty glue or liquid ice
Speaker 1: or something so you can't get there. They will cheat
Speaker 1: at success to keep you down so they can stay up.
Speaker 1: And I believe in a win win model, not a
Speaker 1: win lose model. But love is work. Non love is laziness,
Speaker 1: and anti love is evil. Evil exists, but is very rare.
Speaker 1: Most people are just lazy, and so people will take shortcuts.
Speaker 1: And if you take the right route, ultimately you're going
Speaker 1: to win because you're going to be authentic and real,
Speaker 1: and people ultimately invest in things and people that are
Speaker 1: authentic and real. It just takes more time, in my case,
Speaker 1: twenty years. Overnight success in twenty years. So in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three, Marla Gibbs got an actress and community activists
Speaker 1: ownly the Vision Center complex in south central LA in
Speaker 1: Lamert Park, and she rented at a very affordable wait
Speaker 1: right a facility for us, and we opened the first
Speaker 1: Operation Operation Hope Vision Center. My brother Lance Triggs came
Speaker 1: to me worked for me for what was then a
Speaker 1: temporary job. He had left the airline industry and just
Speaker 1: needed a temporary job for six months and do with
Speaker 1: me now for going on thirty years, and he runs
Speaker 1: the biggest platform in the country for financial and economic
Speaker 1: empowerment for people of color, and that's his living legacy.
Speaker 1: Came a part time job. But that first Vision Center
Speaker 1: didn't work. We did it, We ran it. We know
Speaker 1: we were doing what we were trying. Because people were
Speaker 1: saying I was a lightweight and just about I just
Speaker 1: I was giving speeches and I was talking a bunch
Speaker 1: of mess at La Times wrote horrible story articles about me.
Speaker 1: I was just this big mouth and I ran my mouth,
Speaker 1: and people player hating on me, Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: mean from all angles in the black community, because again
Speaker 1: I was messing with people's power and they're trying figure
Speaker 1: out is he's trying to run for office, appearing to
Speaker 1: be a politician, Like what, He's trying to take our position,
Speaker 1: our place, our space. Getting wasn't personal. I didn't take
Speaker 1: it personal. They just I was in their way, and
Speaker 1: so I just kept moving, kept my head down right,
Speaker 1: and I remember Lance would call me. And so people
Speaker 1: keep coming in the office looking for eyeglasses. The Operation
Speaker 1: Hope Vision Center different vision that I had in mine.
Speaker 1: So the next year I had an opportunity to upgrade
Speaker 1: my software. There was a bank that was in trouble.
Speaker 1: This is where the story gets interesting. Now there was
Speaker 1: a story bank that was in store in trouble. Hawthorne
Speaker 1: Savings Bank doesn't exist anymore. I don't believe Hawthorne Savings
Speaker 1: Bank was chaired by a now friend, Tim Christman. I
Speaker 1: didn't know him back then. The CEO of that bank
Speaker 1: was a guy who resembled a racist. And I say
Speaker 1: he was a racist. I don't know he was a racist.
Speaker 1: I'm not calling him a racist. I'm just saying his attitudes,
Speaker 1: his personality, the way he behaved, and his reputation was
Speaker 1: that that was a little salty little could be viewed
Speaker 1: as racist. Or just not very cool. So this is
Speaker 1: the last person I thought would be calling me to
Speaker 1: his office. He was in Hawthorne, California. Went to his
Speaker 1: office and he asked me a bunch of questions, and
Speaker 1: I just was sure that this was going to end nowhere.
Speaker 1: I was completely frustrated, and when I walked out of
Speaker 1: the office got the stand up. I kept my cool.
Speaker 1: I went to stand up to leave, and he said,
Speaker 1: what would you do with a million dollars? And had
Speaker 1: to keep my cool, right, And I turned and said
Speaker 1: I would. I would stand up an operation of hopes.
Speaker 1: Back then it was a whole banking center right in
Speaker 1: the center of south central Los Angeles. I would create
Speaker 1: homeowners and small business owners. I would put Hawthorne Savings
Speaker 1: name on it. Yep, the guy was racist, and I
Speaker 1: would put their name, not his name, the bank's name
Speaker 1: on it because they were providing capital. And really the
Speaker 1: color I needed was green. I didn't need the guy
Speaker 1: that liked me. I need. I needed him to write
Speaker 1: a check. It's okay if you don't like me, I
Speaker 1: like me, right, you know? And so, And keep in
Speaker 1: mind President Johnson was probably the most effective civil rights
Speaker 1: president in really going back to Abraham Lincoln other than
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln for civil rights bills, one after doctor King
Speaker 1: was assassinated, the Housing Act. But he was you know,
Speaker 1: he was not an elegant person. He was a bully
Speaker 1: and he called Black's interesting things. He called Jews interesting
Speaker 1: things he called and interesting names. Not I mean he
Speaker 1: would be castigated in today's society. But that man with
Speaker 1: horrible bedside manner passed for civil rights bills, signed him
Speaker 1: in the law. Right, So you can't get caught up
Speaker 1: on drama. You know, whether you like somebody, whether they
Speaker 1: like you, and whether they've offended you. Look are you
Speaker 1: are you? Are you gonna step over mess or step
Speaker 1: in it? Sometimes this stuff is a test from either
Speaker 1: the person or the universe or God trying to figure
Speaker 1: out you're serious about this or not. You know, do
Speaker 1: you know Ronald Reagan signed the bill for the Martin
Speaker 1: King holiday we celebrate every year. That's right, Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 1: Do you know that the president George W. Bush, the son,
Speaker 1: has done more for Africa than any president before since.
Speaker 1: So you've had you've had these democratic presidents. We like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe some of them didn't do much of anything. They
Speaker 1: I don't know why they didn't do much of anything.
Speaker 1: And then you've had You've had some Democratic presidents who've
Speaker 1: been extraordinary, like President Obama, President Clinton, who I think
Speaker 1: is a model, President Johnson, President Kennedy was inspirational, right,
Speaker 1: But you also had some Republican presidents that were extraordinary,
Speaker 1: and you've had some Republican presidents that were absolutely horrible, right,
Speaker 1: I mean President Reagan present President Lincoln was a Republican. Right,
Speaker 1: So I believe in the bum factor. Twenty percent of
Speaker 1: Republicans are bums. Twenty percent of Democrats are bums. Twenty
Speaker 1: percent of people in my family are bums. Twenty percent,
Speaker 1: you know, for folks in the black community, the white community,
Speaker 1: let the community, the Asian community, the Indian community are bums.
Speaker 1: I'm not hating on I'm any group of people. I
Speaker 1: don't like bums. So this guy, Scott Brodley was not
Speaker 1: a bum because he wrote that check, because he was
Speaker 1: in regulatory quagmire, knew he needed help, held his own
Speaker 1: nose once I passed the sniff test and asked his
Speaker 1: ridiculous questions, kept my cool. He wrote a million dollar
Speaker 1: check in nineteen ninety six. I think that's a lot
Speaker 1: of money nineteen ninety four. That's a lot of money.
Speaker 1: I think we opened it ninety six. He has a
Speaker 1: lot of money and a lot of money now it
Speaker 1: was it was I don't know, call it twenty million
Speaker 1: dollars back then equivalent enough. So I had to hold
Speaker 1: my nose right, step over mess, not in it. And
Speaker 1: so the uncomfortable part of the meeting lasted an hour
Speaker 1: hour and a half. I was ready to storm out.
Speaker 1: But the part where he committed a million dollars, I
Speaker 1: mean I was standing up, asked a couple, answered a
Speaker 1: couple questions that took three minutes, and to his word,
Speaker 1: he wrote that check. And without that, I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been able to open that first operational banking center at
Speaker 1: thirty seven to twenty one South Librea Boulevard, if I
Speaker 1: have the address correct. And then I met Tim Christman,
Speaker 1: who became chairman of my board, who was chairman of
Speaker 1: their board. And I usually complain about Scott Browley to
Speaker 1: Scott's face, the thameisphrase. I did it respectfully. But you
Speaker 1: know my mottol in life is talk without being offensive,
Speaker 1: listen without being defensive, and always leave even your adversary
Speaker 1: with their dignity, because if you don't to spend the
Speaker 1: rest of their life trying to make you miserable, it
Speaker 1: becomes personal. Built that Hope Center hit success. Then I
Speaker 1: wanted to expand the Hope Center, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: put a cyber cafe, inner city cyber cafe for internet
Speaker 1: access back then in the cyber cafe. And we didn't
Speaker 1: have any money, and so I went to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: To look for money and I was turned down. Where
Speaker 1: where I went, Well, I went to Washington because I
Speaker 1: couldn't get money out of anybody in California. Again, I
Speaker 1: wasn't really respected in southern California, where I was born,
Speaker 1: where I was raised, where I lived, and where I
Speaker 1: built this thing. Again, I wasn't part of the establishment.
Speaker 1: So many people roll their eyes at me. So I
Speaker 1: had to go out of town to try to get capital.
Speaker 1: And I flew to Washington, DC. See countless times from
Speaker 1: a can't tame the time of them. I did the
Speaker 1: uh they call the midnight plane, the red eye flight,
Speaker 1: and I'd land in just in time to change in
Speaker 1: the bathroom in the airport and go to a meeting.
Speaker 1: So at some point I met Vice President Al Gore
Speaker 1: and knew he loved technology, and I kept trying to
Speaker 1: get to this man, kept trying to get to him.
Speaker 1: At this point, I think he was running for president,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken. And finally I got in front
Speaker 1: of him at his residence, vice President's residence, and I
Speaker 1: gave him my vision, you know, and mind you, I've
Speaker 1: been trying now for a couple of years to get
Speaker 1: his attention unsuccessfully, and I knew he's a techie. So
Speaker 1: I and Vice President Gore is probably while we have
Speaker 1: the internet today, by the way, or email, well, no
Speaker 1: email on the internet. It doesn't get credit for it.
Speaker 1: It was originally a government solutions that came out of
Speaker 1: the military that they commercialized. Okay. So he listened to
Speaker 1: my vision and he says, well, great, I think this
Speaker 1: is great. I'm going to come out in a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks and I'll cut the ribbon for you. And
Speaker 1: it's like all I just said was yes. So I
Speaker 1: leave there, and I don't remember the exact chronology here,
Speaker 1: but I know I called the EDA the Economic Development Administration.
Speaker 1: I said, the vice president of the Nine States of
Speaker 1: Americas coming out to cut a ribbon for a hope
Speaker 1: center that I don't have built and I need money for.
Speaker 1: And I think, and I think the government's going to
Speaker 1: be embarrassed if you don't support this. The Vice President's
Speaker 1: coming out, and what do you need again, I forget
Speaker 1: the numbers. Let's just say it was three hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: I needed six hundred thousand dollars. So I needed the
Speaker 1: government to put up three hundred thousand dollars. So he
Speaker 1: so the government did, but you got to match this funds.
Speaker 1: So then I went and called Steve Ryan, who's my
Speaker 1: attorney to this day in the board of Operation Hope.
Speaker 1: And he didn't know me, and I told him my vision.
Speaker 1: I knew you represented tech companies and he's like, who
Speaker 1: is this? Who are you in the phone? And I'm like, look,
Speaker 1: you represent this company, that company, this company. You're the
Speaker 1: lobby in Washington. Don't you want your companies to look
Speaker 1: good in front of the government. I got the Vice
Speaker 1: pars of the United States coming out. I got the
Speaker 1: eeda US to DA to make a commitment, but it
Speaker 1: needs a matching grant. And he's like, look, meet me
Speaker 1: in New York with you know, my wife. I could
Speaker 1: be there, meet us at this restaurant. I think it
Speaker 1: was the next day, I flew out and I met
Speaker 1: him at a bar, and I hate bars. I met
Speaker 1: him at a bar, gave him my vision. His wife
Speaker 1: checked me out. I now know that was the case,
Speaker 1: and she said I was okay, and he said, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just get a range of conference car for you.
Speaker 1: So with some tech companies and they're on the phone,
Speaker 1: and I gave him my vision, and I remember a
Speaker 1: lady out on the phone from one of the tech
Speaker 1: companies and said, this is impossible, It'll never happen. And
Speaker 1: I said, get off the phone immediately. Please, please, please
Speaker 1: exit the line, Like if you don't believe you're wasting
Speaker 1: your time by virtue, you're wasting all of ours. People
Speaker 1: don't only have twenty minutes on the line, but I
Speaker 1: need to be able to have the rest of the
Speaker 1: time to explain to them, to those who are willing
Speaker 1: to listen, when I am trying in what I I
Speaker 1: will do. So will you please exit the line, thank
Speaker 1: you very much. I didned scream at her, raise my
Speaker 1: voice our curserro out, even though she deserved it. She
Speaker 1: was she on the line to be rude. She got
Speaker 1: on the phone to say that this didn't work. So
Speaker 1: she exits the line and I gave my best, passionate
Speaker 1: pitch for you know, five to seven minutes. I shut up,
Speaker 1: and then each company start saying, well, we don't have money.
Speaker 1: We can't get money to you this quickly. So what
Speaker 1: that's fine? I need software. I need computers I need,
Speaker 1: I need cables I need and so I go, oh,
Speaker 1: we can do computers, Well, we can do software. Somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, and one of the companies was into it
Speaker 1: at that time. They made Quicken, Quick Books and Quicken
Speaker 1: and they gave me some software. To this day, they
Speaker 1: are one of my partners thirty years later, and they're
Speaker 1: then chairman an incredible human being, mister Smith, who I
Speaker 1: would always be appreciative of. Mister Smith is now in
Speaker 1: charge of a major university in West Virginia, and he
Speaker 1: is a million dollar donor personally to Operation Hope, to
Speaker 1: our eighteen City five project, and just a wonderful human being.
Speaker 1: But it started, you know, back then, this relationship, right,
Speaker 1: and I get the three hundred thousand dollars and I
Speaker 1: called a construction company and I told him my my
Speaker 1: dream and they're like, well, you know why should we
Speaker 1: do this? I said, well, I got the government coming.
Speaker 1: The Vice President United States. By the way, it is
Speaker 1: Brad Smith, who's now president of the biggest university in
Speaker 1: West Virginia, and I think he's, you know, almost a billionaire.
Speaker 1: And again, just put a million dollars into operation, hope,
Speaker 1: but cumulatively, cumulatively into it, put millions and millions of
Speaker 1: dollars into operation from this first little in kind grant
Speaker 1: of some software. So I called Turner Construction didn't know.
Speaker 1: I told him, like the Vice President Nited State coming,
Speaker 1: I've got these major companies and the US government made commitment,
Speaker 1: and I need for them to do this. And they said,
Speaker 1: what are we getting paid? I said, no, you're doing it.
Speaker 1: I'd like to do it in kind. I'll give you
Speaker 1: a charitable grant receipt. You look good in front of
Speaker 1: the federal government. You look good for these tech companies.
Speaker 1: You look good in front of the community. Don't you
Speaker 1: have a community relations commitment and budget? So they did
Speaker 1: it for cost and I built the cyber cafe and
Speaker 1: the Secret Service came out. I literally one day my
Speaker 1: present back then was Fred Smith. I remember one day
Speaker 1: the construction company was out there They're like, what do
Speaker 1: we do? This is a it was a retail complex,
Speaker 1: you know, we what do we start. I just took
Speaker 1: my hand in the middle of the building and said, well,
Speaker 1: bulldoze this part. I think it was the north part.
Speaker 1: Just cut the hope inside banking center, down the center
Speaker 1: and bulldou's the right side. Bulldoze the right side. Where
Speaker 1: are your permits? I'll get to that. Of course. I
Speaker 1: went down to the city and said, like, I got
Speaker 1: the Vice President the United States, I've got the US
Speaker 1: federal government, I got all these tech companies you have
Speaker 1: turned construction, got the community behind me. I got a
Speaker 1: petition of all the folks in community. I need a
Speaker 1: permit for a cyber cafe because we need internet access
Speaker 1: and sass central land. I got the permit. So the
Speaker 1: Secret Service shows up in the middle of a construction
Speaker 1: site to do advance work for the Vice President and
Speaker 1: they're like, what the heck's going on here? And we're like,
Speaker 1: this is this is a cyber cafe. We can't do
Speaker 1: a review in front. Sure you can't. You can see
Speaker 1: right through the walls. Well, aren't you here for security?
Speaker 1: You're not here for protocol, You're not here to criticize
Speaker 1: whether you know whether I get it done on time.
Speaker 1: It will be done on time before the Vice President
Speaker 1: gets here. You want to make sure it's secure. There's
Speaker 1: no bombs in the walls. You can look right through
Speaker 1: the walls. So they approved it, and within a week
Speaker 1: the Vice President of the United States had come out
Speaker 1: and cut the ribbon in that cyber cafe. It's more
Speaker 1: complicated story than that, but I think you get the gist,
Speaker 1: and so you think that, Okay, we've got success. Well
Speaker 1: there was success until it wasn't. You go far enough
Speaker 1: in the north pole you end up south. I then
Speaker 1: get so here's some more momentum. I then get E
Speaker 1: Trade in two thousand and one, who puts up seven
Speaker 1: figure commitment to open up because they had regulatory problems
Speaker 1: with the federal banking regulators. They were a non branch bank,
Speaker 1: they were online only. So I was going to be
Speaker 1: there only. As you can see, I've always turned somebody
Speaker 1: else's problem to my opportunity. So I was going to
Speaker 1: be their branch network in the community or in any community.
Speaker 1: And so they put up a seven figure commitment to
Speaker 1: build an Operation Hope banking center powered by E Trade
Speaker 1: and we had one in Anacostia, I believe it was
Speaker 1: our first one ever. And we had one in Harlem,
Speaker 1: and I think it was on the corner of Frederick
Speaker 1: Douglass and something in Harlem. And we had ultimately eleven
Speaker 1: Hope Banking Center locations funded by e Trade, And over
Speaker 1: a twelve thirteen year period, there were seven CEOs that
Speaker 1: I had to go through, each of which I had
Speaker 1: to reselle re sale on this vision. Now I haven't
Speaker 1: gotten to the ultimate failure yet. This is the warm up.
Speaker 1: So two thousand and one, this the partnership started Chrystal
Speaker 1: Costs of Us. He was CEO for until two thousand
Speaker 1: and three. I convinced him that this should happen. And
Speaker 1: there's a guy named Arlen Geilbard who was there who
Speaker 1: was sort of my anchor. Every one of these institutions
Speaker 1: and partners there's always a believer, a true believer somewhere
Speaker 1: in the company. He may he or she meant that
Speaker 1: being the power broker, but they're a true believer. And
Speaker 1: they helped me understand where their body's buried and what
Speaker 1: to avoid and what to focus on, and what the
Speaker 1: personality is of the CEO and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So Arln, thank you very much. So Christoph's serving in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three. He said, yes, then I've been
Speaker 1: Mitchell Kaplan came in and he was CEO in two
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, and I convinced him and he said, yes,
Speaker 1: each of these were renewing seven figure commitments for these.
Speaker 1: Hope inside to fund them to keep them MO open.
Speaker 1: Then came Jared Lillian and he was acting CEO for
Speaker 1: a short time. Then came Donald Layton who appointed was
Speaker 1: appointed in two thousand and eight and served four year
Speaker 1: to two thousand and nine. He was only there for
Speaker 1: a year, but I had to sell him. Then came
Speaker 1: and you can't get upset, you can't get frustrated. You
Speaker 1: can't say I've already sold the last person. Nobody cares.
Speaker 1: What I tell you is capitalism is a gladi year sport.
Speaker 1: Here comes Robert Druskin, who served as interim CEO from
Speaker 1: twenty nine to twenty ten. Then here comes Stephen Freiberg
Speaker 1: who was from twenty ten to twenty twelve. That was
Speaker 1: two years CEO. Here comes Paul Idzick, who assumed the
Speaker 1: role from twenty thirteen to twenty sixteen. Now I can't
Speaker 1: be certain, but I'm pretty sure that it was Paul
Speaker 1: that cut my throat. Each Ray was having some horrible
Speaker 1: financial problems. I don't blame them. They were having horrible
Speaker 1: financial problems. Had to restructure the whole company to cut
Speaker 1: out one hundred million dollars of spending. Guess what got
Speaker 1: cut all right? I guess was on the first thing
Speaker 1: in the chopping block. So this new CEO came in, like,
Speaker 1: what's this hope and operation to help stuff? We're spending
Speaker 1: how much money with me and something a year? We
Speaker 1: can't do that. And so I got to notice that
Speaker 1: they never wanted me to go and meet with the
Speaker 1: CEO because they always knew if I was if I
Speaker 1: met with the CEO, I'd find a way to separate
Speaker 1: them from their wallet. So they would not let me
Speaker 1: meet with this guy. The answer was just no. I
Speaker 1: got a letter an email, sorry to tell you that
Speaker 1: da DA, I negotiate a transition period. They would fund
Speaker 1: it for another a year. They would just drop me.
Speaker 1: They wanted to drop me within a few weeks. You can't.
Speaker 1: I got payroll, this and that and the other thing.
Speaker 1: You can't just drop me. I need time to find
Speaker 1: a new partner, new sponsor. So they gave me as
Speaker 1: much as a year to transition out so they didn't
Speaker 1: have any embarrassment on their end and more regulatory problems.
Speaker 1: And I got a lifeline. So now it's twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: This is where it gets interesting. At twenty fourteen, each
Speaker 1: trade d dumps me on my head. And I remember
Speaker 1: it was a Friday evening and I called my staff,
Speaker 1: my team. Was Friday evening, six pm. I remember I
Speaker 1: was driving up to my house, my old house here
Speaker 1: in Atlanta on Moheb Street, and I called my team
Speaker 1: and said, I need to meet with you all that
Speaker 1: are available this Wait a minute, was this Atlanta? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was in Atlanta. I need to meet with everybody
Speaker 1: who's available in person or my phone. It's it's important,
Speaker 1: it's urgent. Actually, now this was a bit of a relief,
Speaker 1: relief that I got canceled from each trade because I
Speaker 1: also knew that my business model was not sustainable. So
Speaker 1: I had these boxes, these hope inside banking centers, like
Speaker 1: don't be committed to, don't be rapidly rigidly committed to anything,
Speaker 1: be flexible, be you know, why is it drunk driver
Speaker 1: not get hurt in these accidents. They're flexible, they're fluid,
Speaker 1: they're just loose. I'm not propoting drunk. I'm not horrible.
Speaker 1: Drunk driving is a horrible thing. I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: one of the benefits of being drunk is that you're loose,
Speaker 1: so they, you know, oftentimes they don't get hurt where
Speaker 1: where the person was Sobridge, you know, gets really rigid
Speaker 1: and grams at steering whill and they and of course
Speaker 1: they get broken up. And so I was rigidly. I
Speaker 1: was not rigidly attached to anything other than success and
Speaker 1: upgrading my software. I believe God gave you two ears
Speaker 1: in one mouth, so you listen twice as much as
Speaker 1: you talk. And I knew this business model wouldn't work.
Speaker 1: I mean, I paid the landlord, I paid, the janitorial
Speaker 1: services I paid, I paid. I tried to get minority
Speaker 1: vendors to you know, to fund the minority vendors. It's
Speaker 1: all my minority vendors, my vendors for these for these
Speaker 1: places where I rented these boxes, these five thousand square
Speaker 1: foot boxes. I rented Hope Empowerment Centers, which had a
Speaker 1: cyber cafe in it. At that point, and a counseling
Speaker 1: center and all that stuff. But I paid. I paid
Speaker 1: all the utilities, all the bills whatever. I was going broke.
Speaker 1: I had more money going out than coming in. The
Speaker 1: sponsorship money wasn't covering it. I had no surplus. And
Speaker 1: the janitor start suing me because I wasn't paying them
Speaker 1: on time. This was the minority janitor janitorial company I
Speaker 1: hired to try to serve the community and help the community.
Speaker 1: They sued me rightly, So I wasn't paying on time,
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, you're a bum. Not each rad
Speaker 1: was a bum. I was a bum. Each Ray's name
Speaker 1: was on the side of it on the outside. But
Speaker 1: I was one to made sure that we hire milority vendors,
Speaker 1: and so it was personal to them to me, like
Speaker 1: Jael John Briant to pay this bill. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: how did I get here? No good d show go unpunished,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, this got to be a better model.
Speaker 1: And then my employees told me, by the way, we
Speaker 1: got to tell you, even poor people don't want to
Speaker 1: come to a location that seems to serve poor people,
Speaker 1: and middle class people definitely don't. So on top of
Speaker 1: all that, I had these locations, eleven of them that
Speaker 1: were getting decent engagement in traffic. We had to go
Speaker 1: out in the community to get the clients. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to come into the center unless they're using the
Speaker 1: cyber cafe because it was known as a place that
Speaker 1: solved or served the poor. I had learned all kinds
Speaker 1: of lessons in this example. So I said to my team,
Speaker 1: how many locations do we have? Eleven locations? Okay, how
Speaker 1: many these locations are unsustainable? Ten of them? Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: hold on, you're telling me before each trade cut cut
Speaker 1: my throat, cut our cut our economic lifeline. And I'm
Speaker 1: thankful for each trade By the way, they did what
Speaker 1: nobody else would do for a decade. You're telling me
Speaker 1: that that before they cut the funding, that these models
Speaker 1: were unsustainable. Yes, we were deficit funding them. So, okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to close every location that does not taking
Speaker 1: care of itself. You just look on people's face on
Speaker 1: this Friday night was pure terror. What's the one location
Speaker 1: that is working. Well, it's a location with Bank of
Speaker 1: the West. It's in California, in Oakland, in the Fruitvale area.
Speaker 1: I think it's called Fruitvale Station. Why is it working well.
Speaker 1: I remember I cut the deal with the CEO. I
Speaker 1: asked them for a million, had a stick. I want
Speaker 1: a million, men and a half. It had to have
Speaker 1: seven figures to build a hope center and run it
Speaker 1: for three or four years. And the CEO said no.
Speaker 1: It was Don Mograth, and then Michael Shepherd after that,
Speaker 1: but Domograth, Remember I love Domograd. Don was like, I
Speaker 1: love you, John, but no, I'm not giving you any money.
Speaker 1: Tay you what I'll do. I mean, I will build
Speaker 1: the center for you. We're building a branch. You've inspired
Speaker 1: me to build a branch in an unserved area. I'll
Speaker 1: build the branch. I'll let you have. I'll give you
Speaker 1: half the branch. You can co locate with there with me. Deal.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, yes, deal, best move I could have
Speaker 1: ever made. Why I had no utility payments anymore. I
Speaker 1: had no lease payments there anymore. I had no janitorial
Speaker 1: payments anymore. That was all Don's problem. Right now, I'm
Speaker 1: a software company, right I'm providing solutions. And I put
Speaker 1: a sign on the wall in the bank, no loans denied.
Speaker 1: The Silver Rights Movement sign was in silver no Loans denied.
Speaker 1: We got to find that side. It's historic. Get it
Speaker 1: up put in our archive. You we approved day one
Speaker 1: from Operation Hope, subject to the resolution of your primary
Speaker 1: denial factors, and my coaches would reverse engineer you into
Speaker 1: a loan approval, walk across the aisle to the bank
Speaker 1: branch and get you approved for a loan. And we paid.
Speaker 1: We paid nothing, and they paid me enough money to
Speaker 1: pay my staff. So they sent me a check for
Speaker 1: a few hundred thousand dollars a year. But I had
Speaker 1: no no bills, whereas before I had a grant check
Speaker 1: coming to me. But my bills were, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: percent higher than the money I received from the from
Speaker 1: from my from, from the sponsor. So when your outflow
Speaker 1: exceed your inflow, then you're overhead. It'll be your downfall.
Speaker 1: That's financial literacy. One on one. Can I get an amen?
Speaker 1: So this was a blessing, And so I said, I said, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna model everything on this Bank of the West
Speaker 1: branch in Oakland. This is what I want everything this,
Speaker 1: this is what I want everything to look like. So
Speaker 1: that I flew back to home to Atlanta. I lived,
Speaker 1: I grew up in la but at this point I
Speaker 1: lived in Atlanta. Thanks Ambassador Young. I remember. Ambassad Young
Speaker 1: told me one day I had brought him into meet
Speaker 1: a mayor I won't say which one. Uh, and he's
Speaker 1: still and he asked me to meet with a baster Young.
Speaker 1: I brought him bachelor Young in and he let me
Speaker 1: sit on the floor. The mayor did in the meeting.
Speaker 1: This is meeting he requested with Ambassador Andrew Young that
Speaker 1: I arranged. And that was a power play because people
Speaker 1: thought this young, charismatic guy who could raise money, he's
Speaker 1: going to try to run for office. And so this
Speaker 1: was these were power plays to send a message to me,
Speaker 1: to put me in my space, in my place. So
Speaker 1: I take the meetings over. I sit on the floor.
Speaker 1: I didn't mind. Gave me good good stretching, good exercise.
Speaker 1: I'm stealing good shape. So I took Ambassador Young to
Speaker 1: the airport and he says, you know you got to
Speaker 1: move out of la right. Excuse me, he said, John,
Speaker 1: everybody thinks you're going to run for mayor, councilman or
Speaker 1: governor or whatever. They one believe you're just doing this
Speaker 1: for the right reasons, he said. You know, even Jesus
Speaker 1: has said in the Bible that a prophet is only
Speaker 1: without honor in his own hometown. He said, do you
Speaker 1: remember how little Doctor King got done in Atlanta? They
Speaker 1: called a Marty m l They called him you know it.
Speaker 1: Never called him Doctor King in Atlanta because they player
Speaker 1: hated him and he couldn't get anything done in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: got things done outside of Atlanta. He said, a prophet
Speaker 1: is only without honor in his own hometown. You got
Speaker 1: to leave La, go do some great things someplace else,
Speaker 1: come back as an honor citizen later as a guest.
Speaker 1: That's what I did. I moved to Atlanta. It worked
Speaker 1: like a charm, and so he was right again. So
Speaker 1: I went back to Atlanta and met with the bank
Speaker 1: of the CEO of sun Trust Bank which is now
Speaker 1: Truest Bill Rogers. He didn't like me initially either. I mean,
Speaker 1: he liked me, but he was trying figuret where they
Speaker 1: coul trust me with some money, right, And that was
Speaker 1: again instincts were all right, That's what banker's supposed to do,
Speaker 1: is check you out. In Jim Wales, who was the
Speaker 1: original CEO who I fell in love with. I loved
Speaker 1: Jim Wales. He's retired now, That's another story for when
Speaker 1: I told want operation to hope and unpack that. Uh
Speaker 1: Bill Bill Jim Welson introduced me to Bill Rogers. Bill
Speaker 1: Rogers took a long time to warm up to me,
Speaker 1: but we warmed up with dear friends now and uh.
Speaker 1: He became president of son Trust and then CEO, and
Speaker 1: I went to him with this vision, I want to
Speaker 1: bring hope inside of son Trust then son Trust now
Speaker 1: true and he's like, hmm, interesting idea. What would you do?
Speaker 1: I said, I wanted to create new customers for you,
Speaker 1: get you out of the no business because you're saying
Speaker 1: no to people who got bad credit, high debt, the
Speaker 1: income ratios and low levels of savings, who are good
Speaker 1: people who want to be homeowners and small business owners,
Speaker 1: but they're unqualified and they assume you're discriminating against them.
Speaker 1: They assume you're racist, right, and you're just meeting there.
Speaker 1: What you can't tell them is they don't meet your
Speaker 1: bank criteria. And he said, you're going create customers yep.
Speaker 1: And it's going to comply with community reinvestment and it's
Speaker 1: going to comply with the law, and you're going to
Speaker 1: be a hero in your community. Win win win, Okay,
Speaker 1: tell you what I'll do it. Okay, I need I
Speaker 1: need a loan for a grant for no, no, no, I'm
Speaker 1: not giving you any money. He became a theme. I'll
Speaker 1: give you money. They want to see if I was serious.
Speaker 1: I'll put you in two of my branches and see
Speaker 1: how it goes. And okay, I just said yes, and
Speaker 1: we put him put in two of his branches. He covered,
Speaker 1: He covered of my costs. No, I covered my costs.
Speaker 1: He reimbursed me after a year, year and a half
Speaker 1: or if it was working, he did reimburse me every time.
Speaker 1: But initially this big bank, I had to put up
Speaker 1: my own money and try this model. And I had
Speaker 1: to go to the federal government and get approval to
Speaker 1: operate inside of a bank branch. It'd never been done before.
Speaker 1: No nonprofits operated inside of a bank branch in American
Speaker 1: history before Operation Hop and to this day, we're the
Speaker 1: only one. So again, we have time for all the
Speaker 1: story I want to make sure of. This podcast is
Speaker 1: not much longer. I hope you're enjoying this. Let me know.
Speaker 1: So I come back up to two years, year and
Speaker 1: a half with my result, my data and my results,
Speaker 1: and he says that's great. Now I'm thinking I want
Speaker 1: to go from two locations to twenty. That was my dream.
Speaker 1: And he's like, this has really worked. You did a
Speaker 1: good job. I'm gonna give you a grant to cover
Speaker 1: your costs. Thank you very much for all you've done.
Speaker 1: And I had an advocate inside of the bank at
Speaker 1: the time, and they got and they came back and said,
Speaker 1: we're going to do two hundred locations. So I went
Speaker 1: from eleven down to one, up to two to three
Speaker 1: to two hundred. Then I tried to take that model
Speaker 1: to another bank region's bank, and I had an advocate
Speaker 1: over there as well, Rick Swagler, and he wanted me
Speaker 1: to win, but the general council did not. And the
Speaker 1: General Council was like, out of this is too whiskey.
Speaker 1: We can't have the non provate side of our bank branches.
Speaker 1: And I was told this was the issue. So I
Speaker 1: told the CEO who liked me, and the CEO went
Speaker 1: over to the General Council and said, so, why don't
Speaker 1: you let John Bryan's operational operations out of our bank
Speaker 1: branches as well? I just think it's too risky. Well,
Speaker 1: what's on a scale of one to ten. How hrisky
Speaker 1: is this? It's a two, A two out of a
Speaker 1: scale of two one to ten, ten being worse. The
Speaker 1: CEO said, look's just say yes, just let the guy
Speaker 1: that will operate. If they screw it up, we can
Speaker 1: get over. It's one bank branch. So I turned that
Speaker 1: into performing there. I then had to go to the
Speaker 1: federal government, the f fie C, the Federal all the
Speaker 1: federal regulatory agencies to get approval to operating ins out
Speaker 1: of a bank branch and allow the banks to get
Speaker 1: community reinvestment at credit for it, which they forced me
Speaker 1: to do, but it was the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: and I ended up getting a commitment for one hundred
Speaker 1: locations from Regents Bank, and God bless them, the biggest
Speaker 1: bank in Alabama. Come back to this sun Trust. So
Speaker 1: then son Trust gets merged or with another bank and
Speaker 1: it becomes Truest And today we have a commitment from
Speaker 1: them to be in half of all their branches. There
Speaker 1: are two thousand branches at tru As we are currently
Speaker 1: an eight hundred branches, fifty physical branches. By the way,
Speaker 1: they have brother over working there, Dante, the chief banking
Speaker 1: officer for the bank, and I believe he is the
Speaker 1: highest ranking African American in the country, Dante Wilson in
Speaker 1: such a role in any This is the sixth fifth
Speaker 1: or sixth largest bank in America, and this was Bill
Speaker 1: Rogers being intentional about diversity and inclusion. By the way,
Speaker 1: because it's just good business sin it's not because it's
Speaker 1: a label. So today we're in eight hundred of the
Speaker 1: two thousand branches because we're creating new customers for the bank,
Speaker 1: helping them comply with Community Investment Act in other regulatory issues.
Speaker 1: You know, it's doing well and doing good. The employees
Speaker 1: feel good about it, the customers feel good about it,
Speaker 1: and we are creating customers for them. It's a business
Speaker 1: model and as a result of that, they pay us
Speaker 1: a annual membership fee and a partnership fee that allows
Speaker 1: me to cover my expenses plus a modest profit of
Speaker 1: fifteen percent. And that's how I make my budget. And
Speaker 1: I have three hundred locations physical locations across the country
Speaker 1: now and fifteen hundred total satellite and physical locations. I'm
Speaker 1: the largest financial literacy coaching organization in America. My budget
Speaker 1: is now seventy plus million dollars a year, up from
Speaker 1: that budget of sixty one thousand dollars that I mentioned
Speaker 1: to you. But I couldn't get angry. I couldn't get upset.
Speaker 1: I couldn't step in mess, had to step over it.
Speaker 1: I couldn't get reactive, had to respond, not react. I
Speaker 1: couldn't be disappointed by people who had their own agenda.
Speaker 1: I could not assume somebody was racist because they they
Speaker 1: were small minded or narrow minded. I could not take
Speaker 1: it personal when somebody, a big major corporation didn't want
Speaker 1: to cover my startup costs as an entrepreneur. It wasn't
Speaker 1: their problem, it was mine. But I should be happy
Speaker 1: and appreciative. They'd let me in the door and gave
Speaker 1: me a shot. I tell something else, somebody else that
Speaker 1: gave me a shot that didn't look like a shot initially.
Speaker 1: So I've given you examples now where a couple of times,
Speaker 1: these big banks, big corporations were like, no, we're not
Speaker 1: writing you a check. Will give you a place to operate.
Speaker 1: So I went to ed Bashan. This is bonus track
Speaker 1: now for this, this first lesson of my failures is
Speaker 1: now over. And by the way, we have a four
Speaker 1: star Charity Navigator rating with Charity Navigator, which is like
Speaker 1: the bond rating or the credit rating organization for Wall Street,
Speaker 1: but for nonprofits you can't get better than four stars.
Speaker 1: We have eighty eight cents of every dollar at operation
Speaker 1: of Ghost right to the bottom line the programs, so
Speaker 1: we have just enough. We have so efficient that we
Speaker 1: have to add a membership program on top operations hopes
Speaker 1: partnership programs, because the partnerships run so lean and so
Speaker 1: efficient that we don't have enough money left over to
Speaker 1: grow the organization and the overhead and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff and have new technology. So we've cried a
Speaker 1: membership organization on top of that or parallel to that,
Speaker 1: called the eighteen sixty five project, which is going extraordinarily well.
Speaker 1: That's what Brad Smith and others have signed on to
Speaker 1: support the work as members. It's kind of a costco model.
Speaker 1: You become a member and you can go shopping, you
Speaker 1: can become a member that you can partner and so
Speaker 1: we just four star Charity Navigator rating in the midst
Speaker 1: of all this growth. We have excellent financials that stand
Speaker 1: up to anybody's scrutinies, so matter it doesn't matter whether
Speaker 1: you like me or not. The host Scott Browley thing
Speaker 1: from You Know twenty thirty years ago? Do you respect me?
Speaker 1: I rather respect me and learn to like me, than
Speaker 1: like me and never respect me. Can I get an amen?
Speaker 1: By the way, send me a note put something if
Speaker 1: you see if you've watched this on social media or
Speaker 1: one of the platforms in addition to the podcast or
Speaker 1: YouTube or whatever, please make a comment of what you
Speaker 1: liked about this podcast and what you would have liked
Speaker 1: me to uncover or I didn't explain. I can. When
Speaker 1: I unpack and I do my financial literacy live book
Speaker 1: events on Facebook and LinkedIn, I will cover it for
Speaker 1: financial literacy for all my book, I'll cover the questions
Speaker 1: that I see noted. Here's the bonus track ed Bashion,
Speaker 1: CEO of Delta good Friend. I love the guy and
Speaker 1: I wanted to do hope inside the workplace for employees,
Speaker 1: and I gave him my spiel and my pitch. He
Speaker 1: said that sounds really good. I think we should do that,
Speaker 1: and he told me who to call. So I called
Speaker 1: joe An Smith, the global chief HR officer who had
Speaker 1: her own power, and she's like, we're good. I think
Speaker 1: we've got some way. This program is here already and
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, that programming helps pilots and wealthy executives.
Speaker 1: I mean they're investing, the companies investing investable assets. The
Speaker 1: employees I'm talking about I got too much month in
Speaker 1: their money. They don't have any investable assets. They've got
Speaker 1: cut off notices, pink slips right, and their credits tow
Speaker 1: up and flow up like mine was. And She's like, no,
Speaker 1: I think we're good. I said, okay, well, can I
Speaker 1: do a pilot inside of Delta? Huh yeah, just let
Speaker 1: me do a pilot and I'll pay for it. Okay,
Speaker 1: see the theme. So I would do a pilot inside
Speaker 1: of Delta Airlines for eighteen months and I pay for it.
Speaker 1: And then again, it's one of the biggest airlines in
Speaker 1: the world. I pay for it. So small nonprofit, we
Speaker 1: produce results. Keep sending reports to Joe Anne and she's
Speaker 1: listening and she's reading them, but they're no action. I
Speaker 1: keep doing it right, keep reporting out, keep stay focused,
Speaker 1: stay consistent. You know you don't win a baseball game
Speaker 1: with home runs. It's base it's in bunts, right, and
Speaker 1: that add up. A score is a score, whether it's
Speaker 1: sexy or or or A is boring. A point is
Speaker 1: a point, A score is a score, right. A goal
Speaker 1: as a goal. Right. So pandemic hits and they get
Speaker 1: a billion dollars withdraws, emergency withdraws from their four oh
Speaker 1: one K plan from their employees overnight, no protesting, no
Speaker 1: no warning, no screaming, no hollering. People just hitting their
Speaker 1: computer at midnight because they were petrified their employees. I
Speaker 1: get a call the next day, John, how quickly can
Speaker 1: you be nationwide? Excuse me? Yeah, I get it now.
Speaker 1: We missed it, and you did and you caught it,
Speaker 1: and that your work works and I need your help.
Speaker 1: And I said thank you to her. I mean that late.
Speaker 1: It took a lot of courage and a lot of wisdom,
Speaker 1: and I've told her it's privately and publicly. This wouldn't
Speaker 1: have It wouldn't have worked to just shove it down
Speaker 1: everybody's throat. It wouldn't have worked. It was by dictator.
Speaker 1: Whatever it worked. I had to prove it. And and
Speaker 1: this lady would have resented me if I'd gone over
Speaker 1: ahead right ed got me to the door. But I
Speaker 1: had to get through the door myself. Again, I believe
Speaker 1: in the James Brown version of affirmative action. Open the door.
Speaker 1: I'll get it myself. Join and I worked together on
Speaker 1: a program that is now a model for the whole
Speaker 1: corporate sector. Half of the employees have gone through our
Speaker 1: program at Delta, half of the one hundred thousand employees.
Speaker 1: They'd loved the program so much they put aside an
Speaker 1: emergency savings account program for employees of one thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: You go through the financial literacy program and you get
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars grant for emergency savings because forty sixty
Speaker 1: four percent of Americans don't have forty dollars for an
Speaker 1: unplanned event. Of all colors, of all stripes, of all
Speaker 1: economic levels, and we all learned a lot of lessons.
Speaker 1: Half of those making one hundred thousand dollars a year
Speaker 1: of living from paycheck to paycheck, thirty of those making
Speaker 1: two fifty thousand dollars a year paycheck to paycheck. Seventy
Speaker 1: percent of Americans living from paycheck to paycheck. Everybody with you, white, black, red, brown,
Speaker 1: and yellow. You want to see some more green. So
Speaker 1: we created this program and very highly successful. You know
Speaker 1: the Delta Financial Wellness I think it's Delta Wellness dot
Speaker 1: com I believe it was or go to operation and Hope,
Speaker 1: which is are just search operation Open Delta Hope inside
Speaker 1: workplace model the data. It was unbelievable of how this
Speaker 1: has transformed their employees' lives. And now we're about to
Speaker 1: start a new program with them that's even more exciting.
Speaker 1: Stand by for that. Rainbows only follow storms. You cannot
Speaker 1: have a rainbow without a storm first. And by the way,
Speaker 1: Delta now is the wealthiest airline in the world, the
Speaker 1: biggest airline in the world, operating out the business airport
Speaker 1: in the world, and the most profitable airline in the world,
Speaker 1: and a leader in their space. And they do sharehold
Speaker 1: They do profit sharing with their employees every Valentine's Day
Speaker 1: to do with a couple of billion dollars of profit sharing.
Speaker 1: So once they meet their requirements for their shareholders and
Speaker 1: they share the rest of the profits with their employees.
Speaker 1: And they do financial coaching on the bottom end to
Speaker 1: make sure nobody falls through the cracks. That's what we
Speaker 1: do with them. We're getting credit scores up, debt down,
Speaker 1: savings up of their employees, which gives them confidence. I
Speaker 1: believe the financial literacy coaching is what healthcare was forty
Speaker 1: fifty years ago, fifty years ago. I think it's a
Speaker 1: new imperative. People are stressed the heck out about money
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to believe that. But you got to
Speaker 1: believe that. And the first believer had to be me.
Speaker 1: But it took me twenty years to be an overnight success,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to make sure that you can do
Speaker 1: it in less than that. And if it takes you
Speaker 1: that long, once you know that there is a rainbow
Speaker 1: at the end of this storm. But hopefully I can
Speaker 1: turn my twenty years into your two. However long it takes.
Speaker 1: I want you to remain encouraged and know that you're
Speaker 1: enough all by yourself. John O'Brien, this is Money and Wealth,
Speaker 1: and this is the first part of How I Failed,
Speaker 1: Part one, Falling Forward. Money and Wealth with John O'Brien
Speaker 1: is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from The Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite Ke