← Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Coffeez with Joe Shalaby
Banking on Innovation ft. Ivo A. Tjan | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 57
01:08:40
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A
Foreign.
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B
What's up, everybody? And welcome to another episode of Copies Proposers, the podcast that brings you the biggest and brightest names in the business. Today we have a visionary leader with us, the founder, the chairman, the president and CEO of Commerce West Bank. He led a successful IPO and crafted a unique focus on the business community. Recognized as one of Orange County's most influential business leaders ever, and honored as one of Vivid magazine's top 10 Asian American entrepreneurs. He's also deeply committed to giving back through community and philanthropy. If you want to learn more on how to impact the industry, this is the episode you don't want to miss. Let's give a warm welcome to today's guest, Evo Jan.
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A
Thank you, Joe. Appreciate you having me here.
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B
Absolutely. I hope I didn't mess up your last name.
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A
Okay. I've heard worse, but Tjan.
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B
Tjan. Okay. Should have checked with you before.
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A
That's okay.
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B
All right. Ivo, I'm really honored you're on today's show. It's a blessing to have someone of your caliber on the show. You've led a successful IPO with Commerce west bank, obviously a huge success here in Southern California. Do you have many branches all over?
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A
No, we actually had, I think, somewhere between eight or nine branches or regional offices throughout Southern California and San Diego, Louisiana County, Riverside county, and Orange County. We consolidated them all about nine years ago.
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B
Okay.
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A
We went and decided to do digital banking and started closing each location, but grew double digit every year. So our model was, you know, mobile banking and online banking was here to stay for businesses.
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B
That seems to be right now the trend for. For banks. Right. Is the digital banking. You could scale much faster and, you know, have a lot more under management. Now that you said there's a 1.4 billion in assets or the valuation.
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A
Yeah, in assets.
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B
Wow. Amazing. Amazing. Now, Ivo, I like to start the show the same way I start the show with every guest. And that is. What is your morning routine?
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A
That's a good question. My morning routine, I'm pretty simple, right. I get up. I used to drink a lot of coffee, but believe it or not, the last three or four weeks, I switched to tea.
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B
You didn't. What prompted that? I just made the switch in the last three to four weeks myself, I.
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A
Try to limit myself to one big cup of coffee in the morning, but as the day goes out, you drink two or three cups, and it just wires me differently. I start thinking everyone's moving too slow, the world's moving too slow. And not necessarily that they're moving too Slow. I just think they're moving too slow. So what I needed to really capture was a better understanding of where things were. Coffee sometimes puts you on that edge, and I wanted to be more control. And I thought tea was more Zen. Like, it just kind of soothed things out and made it more. Gave me more clarity on some things, that's all. And I still love coffee. I love the way coffee tastes. It's just for me, I drank too much of it, so I had a rewind a little bit.
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B
It's crazy because I literally just switched to black tea in the last three weeks myself. And I like it, you know, I found it just like I could just drink it, you know, all day.
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A
Me too.
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B
And I like it, you know, it just tastes better. And I put a little bit of milk and honey in it. It tastes phenomenal.
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A
Yeah. Yeah. And some people could drink coffee all day. I think they're fine. For me, it just wired me more. And sometimes I don't need to be wired anymore. I have a lot of energy when I get up in the morning, so I just don't need it.
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B
And then, other than the coffee, our tea, now, what else? What's the day consist of? Like, first hour.
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A
First hour. I hate to say it. Let's see, tea. I do end up eating breakfast every morning, so I don't usually miss breakfast. And I usually work. I go to my home office and I don't meditate. I don't do any of those things. I go straight to emails, telephone calls, because some people work in the East Coast. So I start off my day kind of a. A work and drinking coffee and, I mean, grinding immediately. Yeah, almost immediately.
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B
So when do you do. When. When do you start the. Like, the workout and the, you know, the normal stuff.
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A
So I'm a little bad with workouts, right? So I try to fit workouts where I can. I still like mountain biking once in a while. I think walking is really good. Everything I read from Steve Jobs, his books, everything like that. So I've been trying to walk. I don't meditate well. So I have a lot of friends that have gone through. I've met the Dalai Lama. I've met them with them as well. They've been to Monk, Tempest and all these other things. But for me, there is this one guy in San Francisco that taught me you can do walking meditation. So I try two times, maybe three times a week to walk. I think that's what a lot of CEOs do, is that they just walk. And I think it Allows you to meditate and not think about a lot of things. But my routine is sort of simple. I don't try to do anything out of the ordinary when it comes to exercising and working out. I think cardio becomes more important, you know, over time, as you get older. So I try to focus on the cardio to make sure I get a little bit of that in almost every week, two or three times.
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B
Nice. Nice. Now you have a massive bank. And, you know, you came from humble beginnings. So what did your parents do when they immigrated here?
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A
So I. I'm actually. I actually immigrated here. So I was. I was, let's see, seven years old when I came to the U.S. i grew up poor. You know, my version of poor. Sometimes I joke around with my kids is my bathroom was a hole in the floor. Right. But I had really great parents. I never found.
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B
Was there really a hole in the.
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A
Floor here in the U.S. no, in Indonesia.
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B
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
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A
And I had great parents. So I'll share a quick story of my first memory of America. So, December 1979, I show up here in the Valley. I'm at my aunt's house. First thing I see is carpet. Let me rewind a little bit. In Indonesia, we used to live in this little place where the water would always flood in. And every time the water would flood in, My mother used to teach me aragami. We used to make these paper boats to let the rain subside, and then eventually the rain would go away or the water would go away. So when I came to the U.S. i saw carpet. Joe and I looked at carpet, and I go, like, that's really strange, this fuzzy thing. And my aunt walked by the living room. She goes, evo, what are you doing? I said, I'm just sitting here. An hour and a half later, she walks back, what are you doing here? I said, I'm just sitting here. Half an hour later, she comes back. She goes, what are you doing here? Staring at the floor? I told my aunt, I said, I feel really bad for you. She goes, why? There's this fuzzy thing on the floor, and it's about to rain. And when it rains, this water comes in. I don't know how you're going to dry this thing. And she was like, are you serious? Pulled me up in my ear, dragged me outside, and made me set out in front of the driveway. As it started raining, the water started going into the sewer system there. And she told me, she goes, in America, the water goes in the sewer, and then it goes back out in the ocean. I go like, genius. This country is full of geniuses. I think so. That's actually my first memory of America.
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B
Amazing. So what kind of flooring was in Indonesia? Was it like just concrete? Just concrete, yeah.
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A
You either live in concrete or dirt, I guess, if you didn't have a lot of money.
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B
So you immigrated at 7, and then. Let's go back a little bit. You started at 7 in the U.S. how did you get into banking?
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A
My brother was a straight A student. I think he graduated at 15 or 15 and a half from high school. My sister was a straight A student. She actually tried to enter pre med. Contrary to most people's beliefs, I came home with the seats. I was that student in elementary, junior high, and high school that would ask so many questions. Meaning? I don't know if they're correct questions, Joe. But if the math teacher would tell me four plus five equals nine, I'd be raising my hand all the time. And the teacher says, what are the questions you have? I said, well, who created the numeric system? Like, how did the four become a four in the five? So I would keep asking questions after questions. And I remember I had these parent teacher conferences with my parents and myself and the teacher, and the teacher one time told the principal, look, he might be the smartest kid we've ever taught math to, or he might be the kid that you need to go back to esl. He doesn't understand, right. So I ended up probably not focusing as much as I should. When I was in high school, I graduated, I came home, and I told my father what I wanted to be. And he said, what do you want to be? I said, I want to be a banker. I said, you want to be a banker? So he wasn't very happy at the time because he said, look, you're going to get a student loan like everybody else, go to college, go four or five years, come back home and tell me what you want to be. I said, all right, well, it's option B. Option B is you're gonna get out of the house, go do your own thing, do whatever it is you want to do. I'm thinking like, he doesn't have any money. I don't have any money. So I decided to tough it out by going to school at night. So I didn't disobey him. And then I went to work during the day. I started off in collections. Teller, new account branch manager. I just kept on moving up really quickly from there.
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B
And then, like, when did you realize that you want to be an entrepreneur?
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So I think being an entrepreneur and banking thousands of entrepreneurs today, I think that statement is still true. Some entrepreneurs are thrusted with that greatness when they're born. Some are thrusted in the situation that they're in. I'm probably the latter. I didn't grow up thinking I was going to be an entrepreneur. I didn't grow up thinking I was going to be a CEO or a bank CEO. So as I moved up really quick, I think I was a vice president 20 or 21. I was like a senior vice president 22 or 23. I became a CEO when I was 27 years old. I was the youngest CEO at the time. So when I look back, all these banks were leaving me, meaning that they were merging or consolidating or getting acquired. So at the time I never actually left the bank. The bank always left me and it kept on churning, churning, churning. The opportunity came up. So I was like at that time I was at Great Western bank. We were a 50 plus billion dollar company. Home savings America, we were 120 billion dollar plus company went to El Dorado bank. That became what you know it as California bank and Trust today. And when I was there the opportunity kind of afforded itself that I thought the bank was going to be merged or acquired. That's what it became, California bank and Trust. And I saw this opportunity in this window to try it. I remember telling my wife the story. I came home and I told her that I was thinking about starting a bank and, and she said, okay, well whatever, let's do whatever it is you want to do. I said, and I pursued it at the end. And I remember when I quit my job, I told her over dinner, we just had a child, he was nine months old. And I think she almost clocked me across the table going like, you just quit your job? I said, yeah. I said, you know, we have a baby. I said, I know. What are you going to do? I said, I'm going to start a bank. I said, I've been telling you that's what I want to do. And she's like, I didn't think you were going to start a bank. I thought you were going to go work, you start, you know, grocery stores or you start an apparel store or something like that. And it just came to fruition. The opportunity was there and sometimes you're thrusted into it. And I how did you get that opportunity? So I was met some investment bankers that raise, that was trying, they were trying to raise capital to start a bank. And I said, hey, why don't you go meet the CEO who's trying to raise capital? I went to his presentation, his roadshow and, and I looked back and I said, you know, I think I could do that. I was 25, 26 at the time, 26 years old. And I remember thinking about it. I'm thinking like, I think I can, I think I can make it work. I think I have enough knowledge. I think I know it. So I took the advantage of, with those contacts because it's about who you know, right. That's an important part of life. I took the advantage of knowing these investment bankers and then I had a bunch of clients that said, look, we'd support you if we do it. I put every single dollar, every last penny I had into it. These investors, original investors, were my clients, my former clients. They all came in and wrote checks and actually funded, helped me with the seed capital started. And that's kind of how it all began. From there it was, you know, I did, I don't know, 200 plus roadshows to try to raise capital at the beginning. And I was able to raise it in 45 days. And it just from there just file with the federal, you know, the regulators. So you have to, as a bank CEO starting out, you have to get approved by all the federal regulatory agencies, the fdic, the occ.
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B
And that's a rigorous process nowadays.
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A
It's very rigorous.
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B
So it's had a friend do it and you know, he was working on it for years.
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A
Yes, yes. So it's a rigorous process. It's, you fill out an autobiography about yourself, not only about, you know, submitting your tax returns and everything else, but your, your experience and all of that. And look, I was very fortunate, very blessed, whatever you want to call it at the time. Because looking back, when I look at my son today who's 24 or 25, I'm thinking I was about that age and God, I thought I was older. When you imagine yourself at 25, 26, you I think portray yourself as 40. But I was kind of a young guy and I had the advantage of all these close friends, friends and clients and investors that believed in me, that supported me, that wrote the checks and they believed in the vision and what we did. And it was during the dot com bubble when I was trying to raise capital, so that was an obstacle. And then 911 happened when we were trying to open the bank that got delayed by the regulators. So there were a lot of obstacles through my career, but the big word was always perseverance. I Was able to persevere through a lot of it.
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B
Wow. So what was the biggest obstacle in starting Commerce west, do you think?
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A
So it wasn't my mindset, so I didn't even have plan B, Joe. I came into it, my wife would say, what's plan B? You're going to go work at Citibank, J.P. morgan, B of A. I said, I don't have a plan B. And so I had that entrepreneur mindset where I said it was going to work. And I think that helped a lot. The biggest challenge or obstacle at the time was my age. So I remember there were who's this young kid? Articles on me, big national newspapers that were saying, hey, this is the youngest guy, 27. At 26, I applied 27. I got approved. And it made me self conscious of me because banking and age are intertwined. Like, I'm not saying that to be good or bad. It's just, I think when you come in to a meeting and you're. You don't have the gray hair, they counter that with experience. Right.
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B
And as an Asian, you already look young.
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A
I already look young. So I got two disadvantages.
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B
Yeah.
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So I think that was a.
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B
She looked like a little kid going in there.
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A
When I was doing my roadshow presentation, people would say, well, where's the CEO at? That's me. I walked into one of our. I remember years ago, I walked into one of our largest clients down in San Diego. They wanted to renew their large line of credit. I sat in the lobby. I show up before my team members show up. I was probably 40 minutes early because I was from a different meeting. Sitting in the lobby. The receptionist says, who are you? She goes, oh, I'm with Commerce West Bank. Why don't you go wait in the boardroom? Oh, no. I was sitting in the reception area. The CEO of this company walks across and says, hey, where are you from? I'm from Commerce West Bank. Go sit in the boardroom real quick. I said, sure. So I sat in the boardroom, comes in five minutes later. He goes, look, this is a really important renewal for us. We're looking at increasing the line. I said, yeah, that's why I think we're all here. He goes, let me ask you, tell me a little bit about this guy Ivo. I go, tell me about him. What does he like? What does he dislikes? He liked to look at the financials. I mean, he's a nice guy. So I start telling about myself for 20 minutes. Then his team shows up, his four or five and my four or five show up and he comes back in. He goes, all right, great. Which one of you use Evo? Everyone's like, what? He's right there. I go like, holy crap. He goes, you're Evo? He goes, yeah. I said, well, you never asked my name. I said, you just kind of assume so. I think the age part was an obstacle throughout my career. But what I didn't realize was I had a good friend one time that told me, look, age should be part of your success, should be part of your strength. You just seem to be ashamed of it. And I was for a lot of years, because when I was in the other bank, everyone thought I was in my early 30s, right? Because I looked young. And everyone would say, hey, what are you, like, in your early 30s? And I was 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26. I just never said yes or no. I just. Yeah, that's close. But when people found out, I had a hard time even recruiting employees, executives and managers that used to work for me or that knew about me before and said, hey, we'd come with you would say, I didn't know you were 27 years old. Man, that's kind of young, isn't it? So I had a hard time with that, and I don't know. So that fogged me for 10 years of my career, if I'm just being honest.
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B
Wow. I didn't know. Now I feel like the most successful people are young people because of the social media influence that they have.
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A
I think in social media and technology, I would say that's true. In finance and banking, I'm not sure it's true because I think you still have an expectation when you come in the room. The good thing is we build a big enough reputation and people know me well enough today that, you know, 24, 25 years later, there's a level of respect, but I still think it's intertwined with age. I hate to say it.
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B
Yeah. Finance, certain industries. I mean, even now we have young loan officers. You know, if they. If they see a 21 year old handling their mortgage, they're going to be a little worried.
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A
They pause.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so that's why we still do business casual only. I took off my tie only after Covid. How's that? And I was. And I wore a tie. Just. I thought professionals act as they must, not as they feel. If I'm dealing with your money, I want to be as professional as I can. I told the team members the same thing. I said, look, we need to come out as professional as we can going through it.
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B
So are all your bankers no tie now?
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A
No tie now. A tie is optional. How's that? So once in a while we'll wear a tie if it's one of our clients or prospects that are sort of old industry we call it and we'll pay that respect. But most time we just require the jackets and things like that. But no tie.
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B
You do the Commerce west polo and then a jacket.
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A
We do the commerce west bank polo. I still think it's too casual for me. Again, that's my age issue. Probably still from back then.
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B
It's more fashionable.
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A
It is, it is now. Our younger clients don't care as much like we go to LA or Northern California, show up in flip. You got to show up in jeans. If you don't even show up in jeans, you look weird, right?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Nice jeans. I mean jeans and T shirt and you can wear a jacket. But it's a different clientele.
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B
Yeah, yeah. They just want you to be fashionable.
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A
They do, yeah.
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B
So I mean the conversation that you had with your wife when you were like, I'm gonna start my own bank. You got a nine month baby.
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A
Yes.
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B
Like that takes a certain person to have that kind of, you know, confidence in themselves that they're gonna make that happen. Cause a newborn brings a whole new level of duress to someone. I like to ask in this way, like, why were you crazy enough to start your own company in that time?
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A
Yeah. So I think every entrepreneur has a little bit craziness in them. Right. It's sort of what differentiates you as an entrepreneur versus someone else. You just have a little craziness. And the craziness is not ego driven. I think the ones that have ego are, aren't really as successful. It's sort of that drive or that passion that you have or that belief, not ego, but that belief you have in yourself. So at the time, to be honest, I have to give my hats off to my wife. I mean, sometimes you probably do the same thing or others. I think when you're in that fast paced situation, you're trying to make decisions really quickly because you have to move it along and you're passionate about it, you want it to happen. I think the part for me at the time when I had my son, I thought a lot of my son and I'm a big family guy. I just knew I wouldn't fail. So I always told myself that again, it's kind of a cliche that failure is not an option. But it wasn't the failure part is as crazy it sounds. Even when I look back 25 years ago, I didn't have that in my head. It wasn't even like some people always think, okay, if this doesn't work out, this vacation, I'm going to go here. It was, for me, it was always binary. It was like, joe, what are you talking about? This is how it's going to happen. And you kind of already framed it out or articulate in your mind. I think I told you earlier, Joe, I'm not attached to outcomes. I'm attached to a process. But I was really attached to the process and the goals that I had with it. So I never thought I would fail. I knew it was super difficult. I took a first and second mortgage out on the house, just to be honest.
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B
You went all in?
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A
I went 90% LTV and I took a home microline that made it to 100% where I took money out. Then I remember my wife was a little bit more stressed at the time. I took the last $12,000 I had. I gave it to her to remodel the house, take the popcorn off the ceilings, go hire these guys, paint the house, take all the popcorn off the ceiling, put some recessed lighting. It was my last 12,000 all in because I knew that it would help her sort of not distract her, but to help her sort of be involved in something. Because I knew there were a lot of hours, days and nights, I mean, they were like 70, 80 hour weeks to try to get that thing up and running. So I don't have a better answer to articulate. All I'm saying is I didn't have. The failure part was never. I didn't have the fear of that part. It was more of. It was more of understanding that it was going to work. I think that mindset sets entrepreneurs much differently than most. That mindset is, you know, you see it in. You can do it in sports analogy from the old Joe Montana, Tom Brady. You can see it in their eyes, right? You see it coming in. You're like, yeah, that's a problem. You know what I mean? And it's not egotistical. Some people think it's ego or pride. It's not sort of the confidence you have in yourself to make something happen. So at the time, the reason I think the bank launch has been successful for 24, 25 years is because I never doubted it. And I think sometimes I, you know, you probably should do that with your kids, right? Just don't have doubt with them and just let Them be who they want to be and push them and give them the resource and the guidance that they need.
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B
Yeah. That drive, you know, is you're just wired differently and you had no other option but to win.
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A
Yeah. And so there's a good and bad part about the drive. Like we talked about coffee earlier.
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B
Yeah.
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A
The drive propelled me to allow me to define myself during all the moments that were tough and bad in work and trying to get it done. The problem with the drive sometimes is it makes you too singularly focused. Right. We're. Sometimes I didn't see the rest of the world, so I needed to see the rest of the world. And so I think the drive needs to be controlled because the drive could get a little crazy. Right. You know what I'm talking about? It gets in your head sometimes a little bit too much. And for me, there were times that I couldn't control the drive. The drive takes over. Right. I don't know if you ever had that feel. It just takes over. You gotta do it. You could have cancer, your leg could be broken. Other things could be falling apart.
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B
Sometimes. It's ocd, too.
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A
It is.
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B
And you're like, you're going to execute.
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A
And that's the great quality of an entrepreneur and the bad quality of an entrepreneur.
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B
It is.
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A
All right.
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B
It is.
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A
And you understand that I. I call it a disease.
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B
It is a disease.
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A
You know, that's what I call.
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B
It is a disease.
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A
And it's not being negative.
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B
I'm just calling it, you know, some people call ocd, some people call, like, adhd. And it's kind of a superpower. It's also an issue, you know, that many entrepreneurs suffer with.
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A
Yes.
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B
You know, in their. In their relationships. But, you know, that's why we all kind of collaborate together.
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A
That's why we collaborate together. I agree.
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B
Yeah. So when, when you started your bank, you know, the biggest problem in creating the bank for you wasn't the compliance, it wasn't the regulators, it wasn't the. It was age.
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A
So I think, look, the US Banking system today is the most heavily regulated industry in the world.
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B
We're so regulated.
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A
Right. The most heavily regulated in the mortgage business.
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B
We're, I think, more regulated than you. I'm not even sure it's not.
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A
We can have a mortgage division within the bank, but no, I think the US banking system by far is the most heavily regulated industry in the world. And compliance and BSA and AML and all these other things play a huge part to sort of not barriers, but obstacle sometimes. Right. But for me, it wasn't bad. I think it came down to the age. Look, there, there are several factors there besides what I told you earlier. There is a certain truth with age and experience that I think is important. Right. And looking back, there was a lot of things I could have done better if I knew what I knew. Right. I mean that's just kind of what goes along with if you're an entrepreneur when you're young.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And that's the advantage if you're an entrepreneur, if you're older, I think, is that you don't have, you have the experience to sort of gauge and make decisions on certain things much faster. But for me, the age became an issue because of my industry. I think if I was, if I founded Facebook or an equivalent of Facebook, I don't think age would have been the issue. Right. I think for me there was a lot of always doubts within a lot of people, clients, whatever it was, or shareholders, investors, and all of that until you prove yourself and that that just comes along with it. I'm not sure there's a better way I could have handled it except for understanding to be at peace with it. I wasn't at peace with it for 10, 12 years. I would never tell people my age. Every interview I did or every conversation I had, or every client that would ask me, I would say, yeah, I.
- [25:58]
B
Guess, how about the Dodgers?
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A
Yeah, how are those Lakers doing?
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B
So you would just deviate from the question. How do you even not answer that? How old are you? Well, hold on, someone's calling me.
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A
Yeah, I mean there's always a lot of ways to deflect the question, to talk back about their companies or their financials or let's talk about personal things or something like that.
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B
So you would deflect. Totally just ignore the question.
- [26:22]
A
And I should have just answered it. I guess looking back, to get approved as a CEO of a bank, to accomplish what we've accomplished, I should have probably just said, okay, look, I think some of these things are self inflicted, but self inflicted wounds are bad because they have a way to mentally play around with you. So I think for everybody out there, I think the key is, look, you don't need to doubt yourself. I think the question is there's a lot of people that are doubting you already. You don't need to doubt yourself about that. And I'm not saying that I think experience is super important. First of all, it's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying the reason I got to where I did at that early age was I absorbed everything. So knowledge was a big thing for me. And whether they were good managers that I report to or bad managers, I always said I'm going to learn something. And I did. Even with the bad ones, I learned not only what not to do, but what to do. Sometimes they would come out with things that I thought were pretty smart. So I just absorbed knowledge like a spongebob throughout that process and that helped me a lot.
- [27:25]
B
Now, you know, we probably have people listening right now who are looking at probably starting a bank. Is there any advice that you would give someone right now in this environment, this current economic environment, this current environment with hyper regulation, you know, excessive compliance, what advice would you give to someone who's looking at starting a bank right now?
- [27:44]
A
So I think the downfall of the banking industry for smaller and regional banks is trying to be all things to all people. So if you take a bank today, whether they're large or small, they all act like supermarkets. So what I'm trying to say is they sell a little bit of everything. So a bank today will be like retail, consumer mortgage insurance, sba, small business lending and then middle market, whatever it is. I think you need to stick your core competency, what really is important. So define what your business model is. If you're going to start a bank you don't have, you can't compete against B of A, JP Morgan Wells because they're big enough, they can be in all those lines of businesses. But I think for every other bank outside of maybe the top 10 or 15 largest ones, the Truist, the PNC, you've got to get to the point where you're focusing on your core competencies. And that's probably true for a lot of businesses, not just banking. The problem with us is we try to be all things to all people versus being all things to some people. So the focus has to be more narrow. Today for a bank and a company, we tell our clients that A all the time. Is that one of the failures is that you spread yourself too wide? Right. If you're selling T shirts, we don't understand why you're selling shoes, we don't understand why you're selling hair products, we don't understand why you're selling suits.
- [28:59]
B
We just thought we were adding more revenue. Yeah, no, you're not adding more revenue. You're actually just losing focus and you're not dominating your field.
- [29:06]
A
But most banks, when they try to open, do a little bit of everything. Let me do some free checking accounts, let me do Some home equity lines. I may do some home loans, I mean, sell some insurance. Let me sell some.
- [29:16]
B
So they're just never a master of anything.
- [29:18]
A
Yes.
- [29:18]
B
They're just the jack of all trades. And.
- [29:21]
A
Yes.
- [29:22]
B
So narrow in your, your expertise and your core competency.
- [29:26]
A
Yeah, just what you're, what you're good at. Get in that business line and don't worry about everything else because if you get the size of JP Morgan, then you spread, you spread your wings and.
- [29:34]
B
You, you don't get, you don't need to wait till that.
- [29:36]
A
You don't need to know. You don't. But that's why I said. And that's true for most businesses, I think.
- [29:41]
B
So you guys aren't doing mortgages now. You guys just do SBA financing.
- [29:44]
A
So all we do is we focus on companies typically with revenues between $1 million to $100 million in revenue. They're typically privately owned. They're traditional, I call them non sexy businesses. Manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, service companies, professionals. We don't do a lot of retail, we don't do a lot of restaurants and all that, but we do bank a lot of franchisors or franchisees, people that own wingstops or Dunkin Donuts or Jiffy Lubes and things of that nature. But our business is really non cash, so we don't do retail. Apparel, restaurants, bars, none of that. The business focuses on what we call C and I loans, which are asset based lines, lines of credits term loans, acquisition loans, long term, short term working capital and sba. And the other half, we focus on commercial real estate. That's it. So for us, we bank the businesses, owners and key executives. So we treat the owners and key executives like they're in the private bank of A, B, of A or Wells or JP Morgan. And then we treat the businesses like they're a company that's doing a billion dollars in revenue because they're in corporate banking where you have to do a billion dollars. So we give you the ability that every loan in our system, this is the difference between your business and mine right now, why we stuck to our core competency. We're probably the only bank or one of the few banks in the country that does it. We customize and tailor make every loan. I think about that, Joe. So every loan is tailor made like a suit, and I give it to you and I deliver to you. And you're like, what?
- [31:06]
B
Well, we say that in mortgage, like, oh, we're going to tailor a loan, but that's really like, oh, we're going to find a loan for a 580FICO on an FHA.
- [31:13]
A
And we don't do any of that. We don't do, we don't do FICO driven, we don't have matrixes, we don't have boxes. That's how rare our system is. So when we take a business, our philosophy was to say, look, if we're going to take a business, we're going to basically tailor to them. Because every privately held company usually acts differently. If one business owner believes in more inventory, they'll hold more inventory. If one believes in less inventory, but the financials, the balance sheets and the ratios come out weird. So what we do is we customize and truly tailor, make a product for you on the loan side and we'll do it for the same for the deposit side. We had a client that one time years ago wanted nine tiers on their money market account. I go, why nine? Nine is my lucky number, Evo. Okay, so we came back with a nine tier money market account.
- [31:59]
B
So what do you have to do to get to the ninth tier?
- [32:01]
A
We just created nine tiers and we named it ABC Company or Joe's account. We said, look, it's in the system and you can name it whatever you want. Like, you know, in 40 years I've never had anyone create my own money market account. I said, yeah, we just created on the system you wanted nine tiers. So we created a nine tier with nine different APRs, nine different APYs. That's what's unusual about Commerce Swiss bank is we tailor make those loans. That's why it's hard for our clients to get that somewhere else. And it's hard for our clients to leave because I give you a tailor made suit, you tell me you don't want one, doesn't exist out there, but I give you one. Now you'll notice that the material's better, it's not as baggy, it fits better. But here's the difference. I charge the same as Macy's would off the rack. So our whole pricing competition part gets off the table. We're like, no, we're going to give you exactly what Wells or B of A or everybody else does, pricing wise. But the difference is it's going to be tailored, made to you. So that's why our company survived through the great financial recession and Covid and all of that.
- [32:58]
B
So why would like, for those listening, like why would someone choose a JP Morgan and why would someone choose a Commerce west bank over a JP Morgan or Wells Fargo? For the businesses Listening right now.
- [33:08]
A
I think you just don't know better because every other bank has like what you do in the mortgage. I used to do mortgage a long time ago.
- [33:15]
B
Everyone thinks they should go to a bank.
- [33:17]
A
It's also shut like you said. You find the product that fits in that FICO score and that LTV and that service coverage or the cash flow.
- [33:26]
B
This is a plug for Commerce west guys. If you're not banking with a business bank right now, you need to be banking with a business bank.
- [33:31]
A
Yeah. And that's what we do differently. Our approach was to say it's not about the volume, it's about the quality. So instead of trying to drive 10,000 free checking accounts and all this stuff, focus on the quality side. And we think that the most underserved community, and I'll say this, the most underserved community is the business community. In my opinion, it's not retail. If you need a mortgage loan or a consumer loan or a free checking account or ATMs, you'll get all of those products. Right. I think that for a business owner though, I think when you need lines of credits or you want to do an acquisition or you need working capital, you want to expand. That's where I think, you know, the communities usually need the most is they need a banker. That actually helps. That's why our core competency was really focused on that group. That, that's part of the success that we've had is we stuck to our core competency for 24 years. We haven't, we banked the businesses owners and key executives and those non sexy businesses. So we don't do venture capital, we don't bank fintech companies, technology companies, you know, that are no revenue or pre revenue. It's just not our, it's not our core.
- [34:30]
B
That was svb.
- [34:31]
A
Yes.
- [34:32]
B
And now they're not around.
- [34:33]
A
They're not around. They're great bank. They just, they were in a very high risk industry.
- [34:37]
B
That's a very, I mean I don't even know what has, what's the regulation like for those businesses now after the SVB crash?
- [34:45]
A
Well, I, I think the side effect of that is the regulation on banks.
- [34:49]
B
Yeah, all banks, huh?
- [34:50]
A
Yeah. So I think with their failure of, you know, Silicon Valley and then First Republic, I think that basically heightened the alert for all the regulators with all the banks. So that's just the way it always works though. So I think I'm hoping that it doesn't result into new laws and regulations that prevent businesses and homeowners and everything else. You know, just regular retail clients from getting more of their business. I mean, more price, you know, price conscious business. Cause I think a lot of banks are considering, you've heard lately about charging more, getting away from free checking accounts and all that. Cause the compliance cost that it takes. Yeah, you guys are probably seeing it.
- [35:30]
B
Yeah, we are. Now are you implementing like AI in your business now or how's AI going to impact your business? So I believe, or bank, how's AI going to impact banking in general?
- [35:40]
A
AI will have a huge impact, I believe in banking, as it will with our clients and all those businesses. First of all, just, just reviewing AI recently, it looks like, I think AI is going to be a faster adoption, faster acceleration than the Internet or the iPhone.
- [36:01]
B
Yeah, it's already happening. It's already being implemented.
- [36:04]
A
If you've, you've probably have tried it, the professional version of ChatGPT or Claude.
- [36:08]
B
Or we're using it, I mean we're using like six different AI platforms right now.
- [36:13]
A
I think it will change the way underwriting happens, analysis happens, administrative things happen, research happens. It will have a huge effect and I think the next three to five years you'll see that continue on and on. I think it'll have a huge effect. And my worry, I guess would be sort of on the normal working population. Right. I think it moves so fast that you've got to start re educating the population to do other things. So it's almost like that book, if you ever read Henry Ford's book, it was interesting. He went down to Horseshoe convention in New York in, in the early 1900s. He stood up, he brought the first Model T and he talked about it and they booed him and threw tomatoes at him. And as he's walking out, this crowd came like, you're a job killer. You're trying to kill America. And he turned around his book, he said, he told all these people, he goes, I came here to maybe tell you guys not to do any more horseshoes, but to build tires. He goes, I think you need tires, you don't need horseshoes. And I think they lost that somehow in the meaning. So I believe AI will also define society over the next 10, 15 years because I believe that the technology is accelerating so quickly you would be surprised today that it could do board presentations. It can do PowerPoint.
- [37:31]
B
Yeah.
- [37:32]
A
It can do research that would have taken you five or 10 people over a week. It does in minutes, right?
- [37:37]
B
Seconds.
- [37:38]
A
Seconds. And you're looking at it like, how did you do that?
- [37:40]
B
And it writes it as you and.
- [37:42]
A
It writes as you, which makes the education system kind of probably perplex going. I mean, this is something that, you know, now you can have it and you can proofread yourself and make some edits I guess, if you want it.
- [37:53]
B
But that's all you got to do to write a paper now.
- [37:55]
A
It is. And I think if you think about like even administrative assistant positions, how it's changed with apps, right. It used to be that sometimes you would try to, you know, have them book your flight. Now it's sometimes easier to book your own flight and be able to change your seats in the middle of it or if you want to fly out earlier or later. So it's just little things like that.
- [38:14]
B
Faster to do it yourself than having an assistant do it.
- [38:16]
A
It is. But I think AI will be so much faster than even that.
- [38:19]
B
Hopefully it books your seats for you.
- [38:21]
A
Yeah, hopefully it books your seats, tells you where you want to sit and all of that. But I think it will change the banking industry a lot and it'll begin on the consumer retail side and even on the mortgage side we're seeing it. The commercial business banking side I think will take longer because in the commercial banking slide there's a lot more tailored science. Right. It's art and science where it's not, as you put everyone, necessarily cookie cut, cookie cutter. You can do it a little bit differently now.
- [38:48]
B
We were talking about this earlier. You know, you have four kids, awesome wife, and you don't really need to grind this hard anymore. Yet you wake up every morning 5am and just start grinding immediately as soon as you roll out of bed. After all your success, how do you continue to find your motivation?
- [39:07]
A
It's a great question. I don't know if I can even answer that. How's that? If I'm being honest, it's a drive that I have that I sometimes need to control because I can obliterate the rest of the world and just focus on that work. How's that?
- [39:26]
B
So you're wired that way?
- [39:30]
A
I think so. There's, I think there's a time and place where I have to stop now. I used to think it would go on forever, but I think there's a time and place where I stop. So what I mean by is this.
- [39:41]
B
When do you think that's going to be?
- [39:42]
A
So seeing thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands over 30 years of business entrepreneurs, from guys and gals that are billionaires, multi billionaires, to 100 million to 10 million, to, you know, 500 million, whatever, it is the same. The Same kind of experience resonated with me that there's a point in time in your life where you are post peak. Let me explain. Post peak. I think that maybe life moves through chapters in the sense where you are Smarter Mentally, probably 5 or 10, in your 50s, 60s, 70s, you are mentally smarter, but you're physically not able to do what you're able to do. So the inflection point there is. I mean, you're gonna kill yourself. There's a point where you just. You kill yourself, right? So I pause and I think about that inflection point. And maybe that's becoming more of an investor, a board member, a chairman. I don't know what that means yet for me.
- [40:39]
B
What's your timeline on?
- [40:40]
A
I don't have one. That's why I said I'm not attached to the outcome, just the process. But I. I'm number one, right? Three things. Number one, I'm conscious about understanding where my physical limit, I can feel it more now. So where I used to go three days without sleep, I go three days without sleep.
- [40:54]
B
Now I'm like, let me say without sleep, I mean, you're getting a couple.
- [40:57]
A
Hours, but you're maybe an hour or two or something like that. But I used to just go, go, go. 80 hours is like, I turn on my Buddy, I'll go 90, you know, like, let's go, right? But there's a point, the physical limitation point, number one was I had to be more conscious of that because I realized over that 30 year period, just meeting a lot of fantastic people, that their limitations, they passed it and they ended up with some health, you know, ailments and all these. So that, so that was one. Number two was understanding the trade off of life somewhere along the line. I think as an entrepreneur, you don't smell the roses or enjoy the roses as much as you should. It's almost like a lot of us are wired to not even take a moment, see it, smile about it, enjoy it. It's like we smile and then we move on, right? We smile, we move on.
- [41:48]
B
That was great. Next, next, Next.
- [41:50]
A
So I think you will end up missing a lot of things if you don't learn in the second chapter or third chapter or fourth chapter of your life about enjoying it. Because I had this entrepreneur one time that told me that life was like a photo album, right? He was much older, he's passed on. And he said, eva, when you're sitting here and you're 80 or 90 years old, he was smoking a cigar and had a glass of Wine. Life is like a photo album. So explaining me like cars one time, he goes, you know, you and I for 20, 30 years have talked about cars. I said, yeah, we have. You know, it's funny, ivo, in our 20 or something year relationship, you've given me a lot of great advice. We've made tens of millions of dollars. I've made 10. He's made 10 tens of millions of dollars. But I never gave you any advice. I said, you know, you can always give me advice. I know. I always think, like, I'm way older than you, but I never give you. I want to give you one advice. I go, what? The advice is? Life is like a. We talk about cars. I drove down a few months ago to the Ferrari dealership. I got in the car. First of all, that fucking thing is too low. I get in the car, and I barely can get in. Then I'm imagining myself taking These turns at 80, 90 miles per hour. I took it at 35 miles per hour, Evo, and by then my back was hurting. I walk out and realize, here's all this money I have, right? He's probably worth $185 million, and $50 million of it was cash. I want the car, but I can't drive the bloody car. So when I say, life's like a full album, when I flip through the pages, smoking my cigar right now in this amazing golf course behind drinking my glass of wine, I had this empty section of cars. Because I always said I'd wait. I'd wait. I'd wait, I'd wait, I'd wait. I needed to make more money. I needed to save more, whatever it was, or my work was more important. Then I realized at 87 years old, I can't even drive the car. So there was no point for me to even buy it. So I want you to take that advice and remember that you got to fill the photo album as you go through life, because you're going to have regrets saying, yeah, I could have waited, should have waited. And the third thing was to not believe your own bullshit. So we all end up, as with success, thinking we could do everything, do anything. Don't believe your own bullshit. So where I seen a lot of entrepreneurs lose a lot of money, they make a lot of money in their business, or they sell their company and make a lot of money. One of the two things happen. Some have kept it for 50 years, some kept it for 20 years, some sold after 30 years, whatever it is, believe in your own bullshit. Someone comes up to you and says, hey, Joe, I got a car dealership here. What do you think? You think you can make it work? We can invest the money. And they always think like, yeah, I can make a. I'm in the mortgage business. I'm in the banking business. I can make a car dealership work. I can. You want. You want to sell shoes? I can sell shoes. I can sell coffee mugs. You want to sell coffee mugs? I could do it. What I realized is don't believe your own bullshit is what he said. He said, you know, believing your own bullshit, that's how you end up creating more stress.
- [44:39]
B
So that's how also you end up broke with some ludicrous ideas that you sold yourself on.
- [44:43]
A
I've seen a lot of people, what they don't realize, again, being a banker having this observation, is they make a lot of money. They sold their business, made a lot of money, and they always end up going outside of their core. So when you're in the banking business, in the mortgage business, whatever business you're in, all of a sudden you sell TVs. I go, what do you know about selling TV Evo? It's the same thing. But you sold T shirts like you're in the. Yeah, sales. And I've seen so many people go bankrupt. And look, lightning doesn't strike twice. Joe, for every entrepreneur out there that's listening, you got to understand when I mean, lightning doesn't strike twice. When I said, don't believe your own. When you get in their business. I've seen so many people go from their big net worth to almost zero, or they have a million dollars left in the bank and they're not living the same lifestyle. And it's sad when I see it, but that's because they get out of that business. And two, the other advice is this. Some people told me, well, I'm in this business of selling coffee mugs. I sold the company, made a lot. Five years later, I'm going to go back to selling coffee mugs. Lightning doesn't strike twice either. What you had at that time was about timing, not lucky. So when you have the coffee business, the coffee mug business again, it doesn't mean you're gonna create the same level success. So you gotta think and pause about that once in a while.
- [45:54]
B
That's a good way to put it. Like, I. We're in a fortunate position with our company. Like, you know, you really can't recreate another company like this.
- [46:03]
A
So you gotta cherish it.
- [46:04]
B
Yeah. So because the model itself, people have tried. That's why we're acquiring so many small mortgage brokerages. It's like they all come in thinking they're gonna be mortgage until, you know, all their talent moves over here. Then they go, I should have just joined E Mortgage.
- [46:18]
A
Yep.
- [46:19]
B
You know, so like, I just timed it right. I started year, like eight years ago and 10 years ago, you know, the timing was right. We invested heavily and we wrote a couple Covid booms and we wrote a covet boom and a couple refi booms and here we are. Those booms won't come. It doesn't matter what hedge fund comes in and invests in you.
- [46:35]
A
Yes.
- [46:36]
B
You know, it's like the infrastructure, the timing, you know, the idea even like, and this relates to social media, like to go viral right now is much harder than going viral six months ago because the algorithm just keeps getting better, you know, and then if we would have started on social media seven years ago, we'd all be superstars. We'd be Logan Paul.
- [47:02]
A
Yeah.
- [47:02]
B
We didn't know.
- [47:03]
A
I know.
- [47:04]
B
We didn't know. The only person I get famous right now on social media instantly is Donald Trump.
- [47:09]
A
Yeah, he did.
- [47:10]
B
And he has like, he just instantly famed.
- [47:12]
A
Well, look at that media company that he has, I think, I think it has like a crazy 50 or $30 billion market cap or something like that and only does like 4 million a quarter or something like that. It doesn't do.
- [47:23]
B
That's amazing that he's. But he's able to, you know, again, his demographic, he's marketing to youth, so he's marketing to kids.
- [47:31]
A
Yeah.
- [47:32]
B
And they move the needle much quicker.
- [47:33]
A
Yeah.
- [47:33]
B
They don't need to make, you know, like he's been able to like attract big, big influencers. That's who he's working with. 17, 18 year olds.
- [47:40]
A
Yeah.
- [47:41]
B
Which is what we do here too, by the way.
- [47:43]
A
I agree, I agree.
- [47:46]
B
So what's like, you grind so much, you know, like 5:00am like, what are some of the things that you do to like, unwind?
- [47:54]
A
I don't, if I'm just being honest, I don't unwind. I don't have a routine to unwind. I don't meditate, I don't do yoga. And my workouts are very sporadic. Right. If I can fit one in, great. If I don't, I don't fit it in. I think my kids help me unwind. If I'm just being honest. I think talking to them just about their lives and what's going on and maybe sometimes diving into what I'm doing a little Bit has. Has, you know, so family for me has been sort of my anchor, I guess is maybe the best way to describe it. You lose all your hobbies, right? The life trade off is I used to golf six, seven years ago. I haven't picked up a golf club in six, seven years.
- [48:42]
B
That's. That's a long sport.
- [48:43]
A
It is.
- [48:43]
B
That takes too long.
- [48:44]
A
I'm biking. Like, maybe I go once a month, like I used to go every weekend. But I think the trade off is it's just them. Like, I, you know, watch my daughter play hockey. I watch my son wrestle. I watch one in robotics. I watch one open up his own little, you know, thrift store. I mean, that's kind of the only way. I'm just thinking that question. I don't usually unwind, Joe.
- [49:06]
B
You gotta unwind.
- [49:08]
A
Some people need unwind. I probably don't. I'll have a glass of scotch once in a while. How's that? That takes the edge off. Yeah, but it's not really. No.
- [49:18]
B
Well, you do the YPO events.
- [49:19]
A
I have some good friends. I've made some great friends in YPO as well. That.
- [49:24]
B
That's kind of like work, though, a little bit, so.
- [49:27]
A
So it's work and it's not work. Because it's almost like. I call it therapy, I think, when you can surround yourself around entrepreneurs or other CEOs that are in the same demographics of life. Right. We're all kind of in the same age, going through the same BS or whatever you want to call it in life. They've helped me a lot, to be quite honest. They've been some of my best friends. And they're all in different industries, but we all get that the same shit happens in all these different industries. I think that's been very helpful. So I guess if I'm thinking about it, unwinding for me has been just talking to people, you know, talking to you or others, and my kids and my wife. And I think those things have kind of helped me unwind more. And I've been better about that. I. I used to kind of hold it all in, and now I think I talk about it more with people, especially again, on the business side. A lot of other CEOs and even a little bit on the personal side with some of these CEOs that become my best friends, I think it helps to get their perspective. But grounding myself to my kids have really been beneficial for me. Sometimes you can get lost into the. I think you call it stardom, whatever it is you get invited to all these cool things and all these trips all over the world, and I get to meet all these fancy CEOs. Right. All these people that most people would never meet, I've had the opportunity to meet. But I think grounding yourself to them has caused me to unwind more. I don't know. It's a weird thing. I've always wanted kids if I could. I'd had six, but obviously my significant other said no, so I ended up with four.
- [51:05]
B
But not a lot of dads with four. You know, me, you.
- [51:09]
A
You. You have four. And I. I love them to death. I mean, so they're kind of my only way I can think about unwinding, because I don't really usually unwind, and I don't know if I need it. I probably do, but I don't for 30 years, unwind. I've never had a workout. I don't. Some people go to do hot yoga.
- [51:26]
B
Yeah. I work out every day.
- [51:27]
A
I don't even do that.
- [51:29]
B
You might want to incorporate it.
- [51:33]
A
That's why I said I'm a bad guy to have on this, because most people would say, like, I got routine. That routine.
- [51:37]
B
Yeah, yeah. You grind. Like, you outgrind everybody to meditate.
- [51:41]
A
And I've done all those other things, but I've done the running of the bulls, you know, it's a little bit exciting. I'd love to travel still. That's. That's a big thing. But I obviously don't get to travel as much. I hike Machu Picchu, you know, sort of unwinding.
- [51:53]
B
You travel a lot, you know.
- [51:55]
A
Yeah. And. But it's not like an everyday routine or weekly routine or every routine. So I don't have. I think some people should do it, and some people just need to find a way to do it differently.
- [52:08]
B
Maybe now, you know, you've been fortunate in your life. You came from humble beginnings. One thing I like to ask other entrepreneurs who are on the show, it's how are you instilling that same level of grit in your children? You know, they're not growing up with tough times like you and I. Yeah.
- [52:27]
A
So I think the hardest thing to instill in your kids is a drive. Having the good fortune again of being a banker for 30 years, seeing tens of thousands of different companies and entrepreneurs. I think what I noticed with a lot of them is they had a hard time with their kids giving them the drive. They were well educated. Some, you know, went to all the fancy schools, and they gave them all the proper upbringing, but it was the drive so what I wanted to teach my kids was to drive. So I'll give you this one story about one of my sons. I won't even name who it is. So here's my son. So I have these five golden rules in life that they grew up with, right? And my son, I'm trying to teach you how to drive. My son didn't want to drive. He said, dad, I don't want to drive. I'll just Uber. I go, no, you're not ubering. You're going to have to drive. So one day I wake him up, I said, I'm taking you to school. You're going to drive me to school, and I'll just go to work from there. As I'm driving him, as he's driving to school, he's complaining about not wanting to drive. Because some kids, for some reason this generation, they don't want to drive. And some do, which is really weird. I wanted to drive when I was 16.
- [53:37]
B
Yeah.
- [53:37]
A
So we're driving down the street, he's complaining, complaining. He passes a red light, and I go, like, son, you're in the middle of the intersection. What do you back up? He backs up, hits a kid. Holy crap. He gets a kid on a skateboard. And I go, like a dad pulls up in his truck, says, hey, you almost effing killed that kid. I go, I didn't almost kill that kid. He almost. Why are you yelling at me? Moms will pull up. You almost kill that guy. Why is everybody yelling at me? I didn't almost kill the kid. He almost killed the kid. So we made sure the kid's okay, change numbers. He gets to school. I drop him off. I called my wife and I said, hey, I'm gonna pick him up from school today. Don't. Don't do that. I said, look, one of my rules I have is people tell you, you fall off the horse, you got to get back on. I tell my kids, you got to get back on. You got to finish the bloody race. I don't care if you come in first. I don't care if you come in 200. I don't care if you're going to come in. Number 500. You got the key, is you got to finish the race. People tell you, get it. Get back on the horse. That's only half of it. You got to finish the race. So I show up to school and I said. He looks at me, goes, what are you doing here? I said, you're going to drive me home. No, dad, I'm done driving. I just hit somebody. I hate driving. I told you that. I said, no, talk to me. You're gonna drive me home. I give him the car keys. I sit on the side. Starts raining. Joe. First problem I got, it's a bad side from God, but all right. I sit here, we're driving home, turn the radio on, he's fine. He's driving around. And then I said, see, it's not that bad. He goes, no, it's not that bad, dad. Boom, he hits a car.
- [55:11]
B
Jesus, two accidents in a day.
- [55:14]
A
I go, you just got in a car accident and you hit a person on one day. He goes, do you think Mom's gonna be upset? I said, you think? You think I was gonna be upset? I go, okay. So I think the biggest thing for me with my kids was to make sure they had their own drive and their own passion. So that was some of the golden rules I had. Part of that golden rule is also to make sure not only did they finish things, it didn't matter what place they came in, but they had to finish. A lot of kids go unfinishing things, right? So for me, it was about finishing things, and number two, it was about understanding the value of money. So let me explain what I noticed about a lot of. I'll call them rich kids, but that's a bad terminology. I'm grouping everybody, people that have more money. The kids grow up without ever feeling pain. Now, why don't you feel pain? Because you, as a father, because you grew up in a certain way, you want to make sure. And every generation is the same, you want to make sure your kids, if you have more, they don't feel the same pain you are. I'm not going to starve my kids. I'm not going to make sure they don't have enough food at night. I can't do that. I can't put them in some garage where the water comes in in the middle of day when it rains, and they're sitting there waiting for the water to recede back. That's not what I'm going to do. I'm not going to have them shop, you know, at every garage sale to get their underwear, to get their clothes. I'm not going to do that. So I thought about it. I go, like, so, what's pain? So the only pain I can teach him, for example, was financial pain. So another son. I make each of them at 15, something like that, 14, 15, maybe 16, open up a stock brokerage account. And in the stock brokerage, at least my name's on there. I tell them, hey, look, we're going to trade, but you get to pick the industry you like. So one kid picked technology, one kid picked apparel. Etc. So whatever that industry is, that's all we're doing. It's not my industry, it's your industry. Once they pick the industry, then we go in together, puts all of his, you know, grandma's check, everything, birthday gifts and everything. And I basically, first of all, not only do I fund it, I double it. On the upside, they get to keep all of it. On the downside, they split 50, 50 the loss of me or sometimes the whole loss, depending on how big a position they take. But the goal is when they pick a stock in the technology field, they write me a little one paragraph. Or we talk about it and we agree or disagree. Hey, how much money should you put in? Why do you like the stock? Nvidia, Microsoft, whatever it is. Great. Look, I don't think you should put in that high position. I want to put in that high. At the end, ultimately it's their account. I have no say so. So we go and we trade. So I'll give you one experience. So Christmas comes along for five or six months, they're trading their account. I keep telling them, look, I don't know if you should do it. Look at this PE ratio. Look at. So I'm teaching about ratios and numbers and like, no, Dad, I know what I'm doing, okay, so loses almost all his money ready to buy this gaming laptop. Christmas comes along and says, hey, dad, you want to go with me to go pick up the gaming laptop? I said, well, you don't have enough money in your account to buy it. What? I go like, well, you lost two thirds of the value of your account. Even if you cash out, you don't have enough. You got to be kidding me. You're telling me I have to wait until next Christmas? Well, I guess you could wait until February, March, April, May, June, until you recover. But it's going to be a hard recovery because you lost two thirds of your value. And we talked about it and each one, it's your decision to make. I can't tell you how much he cried about it. Each one had sort of different experiences, but bitching, moaning, crying, it was all the things that. But I think for parents that are successful, you've got to teach them some form of pain. I couldn't starve him. I couldn't put him out in the street. I couldn't make him walk to school for 10 miles, take him The Payless.
- [59:07]
B
Because they shut it down.
- [59:08]
A
Payless is gone.
- [59:09]
B
I wish there was Payless. That would be a great form of pain, right?
- [59:12]
A
That's the first time I found out that I didn't have any.
- [59:14]
B
You're getting some generic shoes that have no brand and you're gonna wear them in front of all your friends.
- [59:17]
A
They look like mans and converse. Everyone used to make fun of me in high school, but. Or junior high. But I think you have to teach them some form pain. I think that's one thing that parents that are more affluent seem to forget to do is they don't teach them some form of pain. And then after you teach them the pain, then about the pride of money and knowing how to manage your money. I made them open a checking account, a credit card, a debit card, savings account. I made them shop, whether it's the American Express savings account or the Capital One. I taught him how to look at different interest rates, how to calculate interest, right? All the things that I thought I could do for my expertise, right? So when they did all that, there was this big pride. So I remember my son moved into his first apartment. And I go down there and I see him, he didn't have anything there. So I'm thinking like, God, no furniture or anything. I went through that experience, right? And I bought my first place in the Atlanta. So I said, hey, let me help you. Like, you don't need to sleep on the floor and do all this stuff. He looked at me and says, dad, you've done enough. I go on, you've done enough. You don't need to do anything. I'll do it on my own. I'll pay my own gas bill, my own water bill, I'll get furniture. I go, hey, stop. He goes like, dad, you've done enough for me in my life. Just let me do it from here on out. You pay for my school. You did all that? And I. So I paused and I thought about that. I was really proud, right? I mean, how many parents, I mean, how many kids do you know in that situation, right? When we all have money that they, they don't. They don't take pride in their own things? And I have, you know, when I give my kids money, it's funny, they. They don't like it. They don't. They give it back to me. They're like, that's not the way you raised us. So I think that drive the pain of whatever I did, financial pain, because it's the only thing I understood, right?
- [61:02]
B
Yeah.
- [61:03]
A
I couldn't do the other things I didn't understand enough. But that financial pain each time sort of gave him resolute. So I don't know.
- [61:11]
B
Now, that's a good. That's a good way to put it. Now, what do you. What is there a favorite quote that you live by? Like, what's your favorite quote?
- [61:22]
A
I don't know if I have a favorite quote, but I think it's probably the one I said earlier. Not to be attached to the outcome, but be attached to the process. I think a lot of times all of us in our lives are attached to outcomes about our family, significant others about work. Like all this is we're attached.
- [61:36]
B
You live by that mantra.
- [61:37]
A
I try to live by and I try to remind myself, don't be attached to an outcome and don't be attached to being right. Those are probably the two things. I don't know if it's a quote, but it's something I think about now.
- [61:47]
B
What's a personal goal that you have for yourself? Business school that you have for the business and a family goal you have for the family?
- [61:55]
A
I think a personal goal for myself is probably just to have more experiences of different cultures, different countries. I think when I go to different places, it. It humbles me a little bit more to see what people have, people don't have. It makes me appreciate things from seeing Cuba.
- [62:14]
B
Yeah.
- [62:15]
A
The places in South America.
- [62:16]
B
Indonesia.
- [62:17]
A
Indonesia. Right. So I think it. So I think for me, my personal goal is just to continue on that journey to. To see different cultures. I'm a foodie, so I don't exercise, but I do like to eat. So I love experiencing different foods and cultures. So that's one. The second question was for my family business. Wow. I'd like to see us as the most dominant commercial business bank in California. That would be the goal.
- [62:46]
B
Just to be a number to hit that.
- [62:47]
A
Just. Just a. I think to have size, we probably have to be at 10 billion. I know some people say that you don't need to be that size, but I think to be 10 billion would be one of the largest in California. But if we focused our core competency just on who's the largest in California.
- [63:02]
B
Now, California bank interest.
- [63:07]
A
California bank interest is owned by Zions. So it depends on your question of the largest bank headquartered maybe in Orange County. But that's skewed too, because Wells is headquartered here.
- [63:18]
B
Oh, yeah. So commercial bank.
- [63:20]
A
I mean, I don't know if there's a. I don't think there's very many banks that are pure like us.
- [63:28]
B
Yeah.
- [63:29]
A
They usually get into all these ancillary businesses like we talked about.
- [63:31]
B
There's a lot coming up.
- [63:33]
A
Insurance and all the other things, doing the. We just don't do it.
- [63:36]
B
Commercial banking.
- [63:37]
A
I don't think there's anyone, you know, at 10 billion that's purely a commercial bank. But I, I'd like us to be dominant, just continue to bank small and middle market businesses like we talked about earlier.
- [63:49]
B
And then what about a personal. I mean, a family. Go for the family.
- [63:55]
A
God. I mean, I'm a big family guy. I would tell you that. I think it's just to continue to have shared experiences, to continue to be close as a group, to be able to enjoy each other. Laugh. I, I probably shouldn't say about grandkids. My kids would kill me. They're too young. But, you know, they're up there.
- [64:16]
B
I mean, it's almost time and you're gonna be a grandparent. You're not even 50 yet.
- [64:20]
A
Yeah, I'm not looking forward to them having grandkids tomorrow. Don't get wrong. But I think keeping that legacy or that family unity together and, you know, seeing him for the holidays and continue to, you know, travel together and experience things together, I think.
- [64:34]
B
Do you still travel with them even though they're not in the house?
- [64:36]
A
Yeah, I still do. Where are they at once? Out of the house. One's about to move out of the house, one's in college and one is still in high school. Senior in high school.
- [64:46]
B
You're on the other side of it. You know, as a parent, I, I.
- [64:49]
A
Was young when I had kids. I think my first kid I had when I was 25.
- [64:54]
B
Wow.
- [64:55]
A
I was young.
- [64:56]
B
I was 31.
- [64:57]
A
Yeah, we were young. So. But anyway, a lot of my friends are having kids now, so. Yeah, so it's.
- [65:03]
B
Now some of them are in their.
- [65:05]
A
50S, 40s, 50s and late 40s.
- [65:08]
B
They really milked it, you know, I did. They milk their single years.
- [65:12]
A
Yeah. But it's not the mileage of the cars. Where the car has been is most important.
- [65:15]
B
Yeah, that's right. Oh, I think I'd like to close out with, with the same question with every guest. And when you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?
- [65:28]
A
I hope God tells me I was a good man.
- [65:32]
B
You were. You were. Raise good kids. Serve the community.
- [65:37]
A
Yeah.
- [65:37]
B
Continue to serve and do good work and.
- [65:39]
A
Yeah, but you know what?
- [65:40]
B
Take a break.
- [65:42]
A
I know.
- [65:43]
B
Take a break.
- [65:43]
A
A break is hard for me. That's the one thing that I haven't been able to do.
- [65:47]
B
I get it. Because we're all wired just to just win all day, you know?
- [65:51]
A
Yeah. With work and the family, I. It's hard for me to take a break. How's that? I should. But, yeah, there'll be. There'll be plenty of time. Like they say, when you're dead.
- [66:00]
B
Yeah. Hopefully God give you many years of life. Yeah.
- [66:04]
A
That's what I do want to do. That's what I'm trying to do the last five years or so is to kind of pause. I've never been really proud of my achievements. I've never really processed or digested it. No matter how many awards it was or how many accomplishments it was almost like, okay, great, let's move on. And I need to do that not only for my family, with my kids, what accomplishments they've accomplished, but also on the professional side. Sometimes it's. Sometimes it's good to pause, even with the team.
- [66:31]
B
And when do you think you want to pause? Like, and then just chill, Spend more time with the kids? Or maybe when you have grandkids, kids are listening.
- [66:40]
A
I stop enjoying it. So I have an on and off switch with work. Some people can go from first, second, third, fourth, fifth gear, or they can decelerate from fifth, fourth, third. I don't have that. So, Joe, I'm like, I'm on or I'm off. And when I'm on, I go in 80 hours a week and I'm off. Right. So.
- [66:57]
B
But you're off only when you're sleeping.
- [66:59]
A
I know. So that's why I think when I stop enjoying what I do, I'm gonna walk away. I think it's when I stop enjoying it and I'll know. For some reason, I just feel my gut that the day I. The days or weeks or months or whatever, I stop enjoying it. And I don't enjoy the business side of it. I need to stop when something else is. I call it a pull and a push. When something else is pulling me or pushing me, whether that be kids, my family, whatever it is, I think I'll stop. So I'm just trying to understand myself a bit more as I get older about the push and the pull, and I'm waiting for that push and the pull. But when I don't enjoy it, I'm probably gonna stop. So I don't know what that means. I don't have a defined. Not attached to the outcome. I don't know if that means it's five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years now. But I. I have this gut that. That I'll know because I don't decelerate. I don't go from four fifth gear to fourth gear and stay in fourth. I just go on or off. And that's why I got to be more conscious of myself.
- [68:00]
B
Evil, you've been a blessing to have on the show. Lots of nuggets of wisdom. Prominent public figure. I hope the viewers today learned a lot from Evo. Evo Tjan. Founder, President, chairman, and CEO of Commerce West Bank. If you don't have a business bank account, you need to get one. It's the next level for any entrepreneur. Don't bank with Chase, don't bake with Wells. Big waste of time. Hit up Commerce West. Let's go.
- [68:24]
A
Thank you.
- [68:26]
B
All right. Thank you.