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