Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Banking on Innovation ft. Ivo A. Tjan | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 57

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

Ivo A. Tjan is the dynamic Founder, Chairman, President, and CEO of CommerceWest Bank. With a successful IPO under his belt, Ivo has built a bank that exclusively serves the business community with a unique vision. Recognized as one of Orange County’s Most Influential Business Leaders and one of Vivid Magazine’s Top 10 Asian American Entrepreneurs, Ivo shares his journey of leadership, innovation, and philanthropy. Discover how Ivo’s strategic insights continue to make a profound impact in the financial world.For More Check Out our Playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgPwyhl8CkXiM0cBtuY8A_6JS60FueLz3&si=0_2dnoPkYV6jcSGwCheck Us Out on all Platforms!Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coffeez-for-closers-with-joe-shalaby/id1726674707Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2KkQWRqHSHcCK3TVfsRKUK?si=hjTnUOjFS5eTDxBjgf4RwQ&preview=noneAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/Coffeez-Closers-Joe-Shalaby/dp/B0CRYLQRW6Coffeez and Closers Socials & WebsiteWebsite: https://coffeezforclosers.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coffeezforclosers/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbnU0T3RrLXdPbC1BR2NLc2lWcExqWklQaHlQUXxBQ3Jtc0tudi1GV2Zod3hRYzRhTkhONFBuMlptblNGSlJ1QzhpV0tzbHh5YThNR0R3Y2RnNnU5NV9ER3E5ZUhxMjdUUWp1UWo4MVl6Q2szeXo1cFh1OHNkYkxDR1F0MXZtMTZ6QnZoakdzSnJpVl9PcWZBOU9zZw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40coffeezforclosers&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa2pLZ2pMaUxmSTh4dy1qazMtdlBjX2pVN1AxQXxBQ3Jtc0tua2RUTUNsRmJob0RKWlVqeDhNaUN4US1rdlRvUG9Fdm5SNk1jU1pQNzNLQnVmUmtGMGtMYUViZ2pLMXJkOVJUci1kMk9DN2poTThVV2NFd0tISWdDMzNwOEZ2c3pVb09lbEhjemJHblRsS1RKdHZqbw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpeople%2FCoffeez-for-Closers-with-Joe-Shalaby%2F61556355642488%2F&v=uXvk6LY9lS8 Joe Shalaby SocialsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/josephshalaby/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3p6VlRzR1BWMkJQM1ZIaUdVZHhYVTYyak43QXxBQ3Jtc0tuUXVBOE1oZUJYTmZIZnNENUgxQkhjamk4RXJHb09MWU9OczJhLWpnX0JwN2pENzRhaV9NajJROW5nek1tQ1VvVE40ZFJuUUI2cnI0ajNKLXE4d1VMUUpkTGFHR0tGY0o5NUhnWnZnaXJoZXdEM0piaw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40josephshalaby&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/josephshalaby E Mortgage Capital Socials & WebsiteInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/emortgagecapital/Website: https://www.emortgagecapital.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Emortgagecap #1 Mortgage Company on Social on 🌎#1 Non Delegated Lender in the Country🌟#1 Broker in CANMLS #1416824"Mortgages Are What We Do Not Who We Are"™https://finance.yahoo.com/news/learn-why-e-mortgage-capital-192000740.htmlAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What's up, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Coffee's 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 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.

Thank you, Joe. Appreciate you having me here. Absolutely. I'm honored. I hope I didn't mess up your last name. I've heard worse. but T Jan. T Jan. T Jan. Okay. Should have checked with you before. That's okay. All right, Evo, I'm really honored

you're on today's show. It's a blessing to have someone of your caliber on the show. You know, 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? No, we actually had, I think,

somewhere between eight or nine branches or regional offices throughout Southern California, in San Diego, L.A. County, Riverside County, and Orange County. We consolidated them all about nine years ago. Okay. 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. That seems to be right now the trend for banks, right? Is the digital banking you could scale much faster

and, you know, have a lot more under management. Now, you said there's a $1.4 billion in assets or the valuation? Yeah, in assets. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. Now, Evo, I like to start the show the same way I start the show with every guest. And that is, what is your morning routine? 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 not, the last three or four weeks, I switched the tea. You didn't? What prompted that? And I just made the switch in the last three to four weeks myself.

Yeah. So I tried to limit myself to one big cup of coffee in the morning. But, As the day it goes out, you drink two or three cups, and it just wires me differently, right? 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 need 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 soothe things out and 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 to rewind a little bit. It's crazy because I literally just switched to black tea in the last three weeks myself. Yeah, probably. And I like it. You know, I found it just like I could just drink it, you know, all day.

Me too. 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. 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 more. I have a lot of energy when I get up in the morning. so I just don't need it. And then other than the coffee, our tea now, what else? What's the day consistent of, like first hour? 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 work and drinking coffee. and I mean,

grinding immediately. Yeah, almost immediately. So when do you do, when do you start the like the workout and the, you know, the normal stuff? 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' 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 temple. 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 we get older. 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. 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? So I'm actually, I actually immigrated here. So I was, let's see, seven years old when I came to 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. Was it really a hole in the floor? Yeah. You're in the U.S.? No, in Indonesia. Oh, yeah, yeah.

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, origami. 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 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, Eva, what are you doing? I said, I'm just sitting here. An hour and a half later, she walks back. She goes, 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 said, 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? Pull me up in my ear, drag 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 into sewer, and then it goes back out in the ocean. I go like, genius. I go like, this country is full of geniuses, I think. So that's actually my first memory of America. Amazing. So what kind of flooring was in Indonesia? Just concrete.

Just concrete. Yeah, you either live on concrete or dirt, I guess, if you didn't have a lot of money. So you immigrated at 7, and then let's go back a little bit. You know, you started at 7 in the U.S. Like, how did you get into banking? So 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, most people's beliefs, I came on with the seats. So 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 do you have?

I said, well, who created the numeric system? Like, how did the four become a four and 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 might 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. He 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 going to get out of the house. Go do your own thing. Do whatever 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 them moving up really quickly from there. And then, like, when did you realize that? that you want to be an entrepreneur? So I think being an entrepreneur and banking, you know, 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 at 20 or 21. I was like a senior vice president, 22 or 23. I became a CEO when I was 27 years old, right?

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 at the time I was at Great Western Bank, we were a 50-plus billion-dollar company,

Home Savings in America, we were $120 billion 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. And 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 she says, okay, well, whatever, let's do whatever 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. Yeah. 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, um, how did you get that opportunity?

So I was, um, met some investment bankers, uh, 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 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 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, I did, I don't know, 200 plus road shows to try to raise capital at the beginning. And I was able to raise it in 45 days. And just from there, just file with 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. And that's a rigorous process nowadays. It's very rigorous. So it's... I had a friend do it and, you know, he was working on it for years. 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 about your experience and all of that. And look, I was very fortunate, very blessed, whatever you want to call 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, I think portray yourself as 40, but I was kind of a young guy, and I had the advantage of all these close friends and clients and investors that believed in me, that supported me, that wrote the checks, and, you know, they believed in the vision and what we did. and, you know, it was during the dot-com bubble when I was trying to raise capital.

So that was an obstacle. And then 9-11 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. Wow. So what was the biggest obstacle in starting Commerce West, do you think? So it wasn't my mindset.

So I didn't even have plan B, Joe. I came into it, and 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, you know,

who's this young kid? I was trying to do articles on me, big national newspapers that were saying, hey, this is the youngest guy, 27, at 26, I apply, 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 don't have the gray hair, they counter that with experience, right? And as an age, and you already look young.

I already look young. So I got two disadvantages coming. So I think that was a huge. You looked like a little kid going in there. 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. I was saying in the lobby, the reception that 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 saying in the reception area. The CEO of this company walks across and says, hey, we're.

Where are you from? I'm from Commerce West Bank because 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 about this guy, Evo.

I go, tell me about him. What does he like? What does he dislikes? What is he like to look at the financials? I mean, he's a nice guy. So I start telling him 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 is Evo? And everyone's like, no, what? He's right there. I got like, holy crap, because 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 curve,

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're 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.

Wow. I don't know. Now, like, I feel like the most successful people are young people because of the social media influence that they have. 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. Yeah, finance, of course. In certain industries. I mean, even now, we have young loan officers, you know, if they see a 21-year-old handling their mortgage, they're going to be a little worried. They pause.

Yeah. And so that's why we still do business casual only. I took off my tie only after COVID. How's that? And I wore a tie just, I thought professionally. 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. So are all your bankers no tie now? 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. Did you do the Commerce West Polo in that? than a jacket. We do the Congress of Bank Polo. I still think it's too casual for me. Again, that's my age issue probably still from back then. It's more fashionable. It is. It is. And now our younger clients don't care as much. Like we go to L.A. or Northern California. Show up in flip-lops. You got to show up in jeans. If you don't even show up in jeans, you look weird, right? Nice jeans. I mean, jeans and T-shirt and you can wear a jacket, but it's a different clientele. Yeah, yeah. They just want you to be fashionable. They do. Yeah. So,

I mean, the conversation that you had with your wife when you were like, I'm going to start my own bank and you got a nine-month baby. Yes. Like, that takes a certain person to have that kind of, you know, confidence in themselves that they're going to make that happen. Because a newborn brings a whole new level of duress to someone. And what I like to ask in this way, like, why were you crazy enough to start your own company in that time? 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 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 and you wanted 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, 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. I went all in. 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 stress 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. I said, go hire these guys, paint the house, take all the popcorn off ceiling, put some recess 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, there 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. It's sort of the confidence you have in yourself to make something happen. So at the time, the reason I think the bank launched 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. Yeah, that drive, you know, is you're just wired differently. And, and you, and you, you're just wired differently. And, and you, You had no other option but to win.

Yeah. And so there's a good and bad part about the drive. Like we talked about coffee earlier. Yeah. 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 focus, right?

Where sometimes I didn't see the rest of the world. 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 don't talk about it. It gets in your head sometimes a little bit too much. And for me, there are times that I couldn't control the drive. Like the drive takes over, right?

I don't know if you've ever had that. It just takes over. Like, you've got to do it. You could have cancer. Your leg could be broken. Other things could be falling apart. Sometimes it's OCD too. It is.

And you're like, you're going to execute. You're going to execute. And that's the great quality of an entrepreneur and the bad quality of an entrepreneur. It is. And you understand that. I call it a disease. It is a disease.

That's what I call it. It is a disease. And it's not being negative. I'm just calling it a disease. You know, some people call it 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, you know,

in their relationships. But, you know, that's why we all kind of collaborate together. That's why we collaborate together. I agree. Yeah. So 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 age?

So I think, look, the U.S. banking system today is the most heavily regulated industry in the world. We're so regulated. Right? The most heavily regulated. In the mortgage business, we're like, I think more regulated. than you. I'm not even sure. It's not. We can have a mortgage division within the bank, but no, I think the U.S. 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 obstacles sometimes, right? But for me, it wasn't that. I think it came down to the age. Look, 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. Yeah. 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 found at Facebook or

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 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, right? Every, interview I did or every conversation I had or every client that would ask me, I would say, yeah, I guess I was close. How about the Dodgers? How are those Lakers doing? So you would just deviate from the question? Like, how do you even not answer that? Like,

how old are you? Well, hold on. Someone's calling me. 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, you know, personal things or something like that. So you would deflect totally, just ignore the question. And I should have just answered it. I guess looking back, you know, 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.

And, yeah, 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 experience, 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 there 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 absorb knowledge like a sponge throughout that process, and that helped me a lot. 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?

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 to your core competency of what really is important. So define what your business model is if you're going to start a bank. You can't compete against B of A, JPMorgan, 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 truest, the PNC, you've got to get to the point where you're focusing on your core company. 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 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. We just thought

we were adding more revenue. No, you're not adding more revenue. You're actually just losing focus and you're not dominating your field. 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'm We do some home loans. I mean, sell some insurance. Let me sell some. So they're just never a master of anything. Yes.

They're just a jack of all trades. Yes. So narrowing your expertise. And your core competency. Just what you're good at, get in that business line, and don't worry about everything else. Because if you get to the size of JP Morgan, then you spread. You spread your wings and you... You don't need to wait until that big.

You don't need it. No, you don't. But that's why I said. And that's true for most businesses, I think. So you guys aren't doing more. now you guys just do SBA financing so all we do is we focus on companies uh typically with revenues between one million to 100 million dollars 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 wing stops or you know duncan donuts or jiffy loops and things that nature but our business is really non-cash so we don't retail apparel, restaurants, bars, none of that. The business focuses on what we call C&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 JPMorgan,

and then we treat the businesses like they're a company that's doing a business. 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 a 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. Now think about that, Joe. So every loan is tailor made like a suit and I give it to you and I deliver it to you and you're like, what? 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 585 go on and

FHA 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 a 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

um one time years ago wanted um nine tiers on their money market account i go why nine nine's my lucky number you go hmm okay so we came back with a nine tier money market account so what do you have to do to get to the ninth year 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 and like you know in 40 years i've never had anyone create my own winning 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-made 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. It 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 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. So why would, like, for those listening, like, why would someone choose a J.P. Morgan, I mean, why would someone choose a Commerce West Bank over at JPMorgan or Wells Fargo

for the businesses listening right now? 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. Everyone thinks that should go to a bank. It's off the shell. Like you said, you find the product that fits in that FICO score and that LTV and that debt service coverage or the cash flow. This is a plug for Commerce West.

Like, guys, if you're not banking with a business bank right now, you need to be banking with the business bank. 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. Yeah.

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 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's part of the success that we've had is we've stuck to our core competency for 24 years. We haven't, we bank the

businesses, owners and key executives in 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 core. That was SVB. Yes. And now they're not around. They're not around. They're a great bank.

They were in a very high-risk industry. That's a very, I mean, I don't even know how. What's the regulation like for those businesses now after the SVB crash? Well, I think the side effect of that is the regulation on banks. Yeah, all banks, huh? Yeah. So I think with the 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 prevents 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 because I think a lot of banks are considering you've heard lately about charging more, getting away from free checking counts and all that because the compliance costs that it takes. Yeah. You guys are probably seeing it. 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 how's AI going to impact banking in general?

AI will have a huge impact, I believe, in banking, as it will with our clients and all those businesses. First of all, 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. Yeah. It's already happening. It's already being implemented. You've probably have tried it,

the professional version of chat GPT or Claude or... We're using it. I mean, we're using like six different AI platforms right now. 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 in the next three to five years,

you'll see that content. continue on and on. I think it'll have 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 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, you're a job killer, you're trying to kill America. And he turned around in 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. Because I just, 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 PowerPoints, it can do research that would have taken you five or ten people over a week. It does in minutes, right? Seconds. And you're looking at it like, how did you do that? And it writes it as you. And it writes it 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 prove for it

yourself and make some edits, I guess, if you want it. But that's all you got to do to write a paper now. It is. And I think if you think about 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, you know, right, in the middle of it, or if you want to fly out earlier or later.

So it's just little things like that. It's faster to do it yourself than having an assistant do it through. It is, but I think AI will be so much faster than even that. Hopefully it books your seats for you. Hopefully it books your seats, tells you where you want to sit, you know, 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 side, there's a lot more tailored.

Art and science, right? It's art and science where it's not as you put everyone necessarily cookie cutter. You can do it a little bit differently. Now, 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, 5 a.m.

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? Well, 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? You're wired that way. I think so. 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

we got to stop. So what I mean by is this. When do you think that's going to be? So seeing thousands and thousands and thousands or for 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 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 five or 10, in your 50s, 60, 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 going to 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. What's your timeline on? 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 now. I'm like, oh, let me say without sleep. I mean, you're getting a couple hours, but you're... Maybe an hour or two or something like that, but I used to just go, go, go, 80 hours. It was like, you know, 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 have to, I have 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 other. 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 and we move on. That was great.

Next, next. 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 that 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 he explained me like cars. One time he goes, you and I for 20, 30 years have talked about cars. I said, yeah, we have. You know it's funny, Evo. In our 20 or something your 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 tens of millions of dollars. But I never gave you an 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 want to give you one advice. I go what? But the advice is life is like, well, 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 managing myself taking these turns at 80, 90 miles prior. I took it at 35 miles prior, even. And by then, my back was hurting. I walked on and realize, here's all this money I have, right? He's probably worth $185 million and $50 million if 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 page of smoking my cigar right now and 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'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. And 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've got to fill the photo album as you go through life because you're going to have regrets saying, yeah, you could have waited, should have waited.

And the third thing was to not believe your own bullshit. So we all end up with success thinking we could do everything, do anything, don't believe your own bullshit. So where I've 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 happens. Some have kept it for 50 years, some kept it for 20 years,

I'm sold it 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? Do you think you can make it work? We can invest some 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 to sell shoes? I can sell coffee mugs. You want to sell coffee mugs? I can do it. What I realize 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. You're creating more stress. Boy, that's how also you end up broke with some ludicrous ideas that you sold yourself on.

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 to be 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 EV? It's the same thing. But you sold T-shirts.

Like, you're in the, yeah. It's 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've got to understand. When I mean lightning doesn't strike twice, when I said, don't believe your own bullshit. 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 from 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. I sold the company made a lot five years later I'm gonna go back to selling coffee mugs Lightning doesn't strike twice either what you had at that time was about timing not luck So when you have the coffee business the coffee mug business again it doesn't mean you're gonna create the same level of success So you gotta think and pause about that once in a while

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 So you got to cherish it 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 going to be e mortgage until you know all their talent moves over here then they go i should have just joined e mortgage yep you know so like i just timed it right i started in years like eight years ago and 10 years ago you know the timing was right we invested heavily and we wrote a couple of covid booms and we wrote a covid 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 invest in you yes you know it's like it's like it's 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. Yep. We didn't know. I know. We didn't know. The only person I get famous right now on social media instantly is Donald Trump. He did. He just instantly fame.

Well, look at that media company that he has. I think it has like a crazy 50 or $30 billion market cap or something like that. It only does like $4 million, a quarter or something like that. It doesn't do that. It's amazing that he's it. But he's able to, you know, again, his demographic, he's marketing to youth. He's marketing the kids. And they move the needle much quicker.

Yeah. I don't need to make, you know, like he's. He's been able to, like, attract big, big influencers. That's who's, he's working with 17, 18-year-olds. Yeah. Which is what we do here, too, by the way. I agree. I agree.

So, what's, like, you grind so much, you know, like, 5 a.m. Like, what are some of the things that you do to, like, unwind? 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?

It's if I can fit one in, great. If 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. So family for me has been sort of my anchor, I guess, is maybe the best way I describe. it. You lose all your hobbies, right? The life tradeoff is, I used to golf six, seven years ago. I haven't picked up a golf club in six, seven years ago. That's a long sport. It is. That takes too long.

Mount biking, like maybe I go once a month. I used to go every weekend, but I think the tradeoff is just them. Like I, you know, watch my daughter play hockey, 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 of that question. I don't usually unwind, Joe. You've got to unwind. 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 unwining, though. It's not unwinding, no. Well, you do the YPO events. I have some good friends.

I've made some great friends in YPO as well. That's kind of like work, though, a little bit. 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 unwind. So I guess if I'm thinking about it, unwinding from 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 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 have 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, you know, most people would never meet. I've had the opportunity to

meet, right? But I think grounding yourself to them has caused me to unwind more. I don't know. It's a weird thing. So I've always wanted kids. If I could, I'd have had six. But obviously my sympathy and others,

said no, so I ended up with four, but... Not a lot of dads with four, you know, me, you. You have four, and 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.

Yeah, I work out every day. I don't even do that. You might want to incorporate it. I'm a, that's why I said, I'm a bad guy to have on this because most people would say, like, I got this routine, that routine. Yeah, yeah, you grind, like, you're outgrind to everybody. To meditate. I've done all those other things, but I've done the running of the bulls, you know,

is a little bit exciting. I'd love to travel still. That's a big thing, but I obviously don't get to travel as much. I'd hike Machupechu, you know. That's sort of unwiny. You travel a lot, you know? Yeah, and, but it's not like an everyday routine or weekly routine or everything's 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, 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? They're not growing up with tough times like you and I. Yeah. 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 the 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 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 Uber. 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 when driving 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. Yeah. 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. Oh, my God. Holy crap. He gets a kid on a skateboard. And I go like, a dad pulls up in his truck. says, hey, you almost eff-and killed that kid. I go, I didn't almost kill that kid.

He was, why are you yelling at me? Moms will pull up because you almost kill that kid. Why is everybody yelling at me? I didn't even kill the kid. He almost killed the kid. So we made sure the kid's okay. Change numbers. He gets to school.

I drop them off. I called my wife and I said, hey, I'm going to 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. my kids, you got to get back on and you've 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. The key is you got to finish the race. People tell you, you get to 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. He 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 going to drive me home. I give him the car keys. I sit on the side. It starts raining. go first problem I got like god it's a bad side from God but all right I sit here we're driving hell 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 oh I got like Jesus two accidents in a day 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 what you think what's gonna be outside I go okay so 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, right, it didn't matter what place they came in, but they had to finish. A lot of kids go unfinished 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 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 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 stockbrokage account. And in the stockbrok, my name is 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, et cetera, 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. But all of his, you know, grandma's check, everything, birthday gets 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 to loss with 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? Invidia, 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. So I'm teaching about ratios and numbers. And I'm 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. It says, hey, dad, you want to go with me to pick up the gaming laptop?

I said, well, you don't have enough money your account to buy it. What? I go like, well, you lost two-thirds of the value of your account. Even if you cashed out, you don't have enough. You've got to be kidding me. You're telling me I have to wait until next Christmas to me. Well, I guess you can 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 is 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 him 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 pay list because they shut it down. Payless is gone. I wish there was payless. That would be a great form of pain. Right? That's the first time I found out that I didn't have any way. You're getting some generic shoes that have no brand and you're going to them in front of all your friends.

They look like vans and converse. Everyone used to make fun of me in high school, or junior high, but I think you have to teach them some form of pain. I think that's one thing that parents that are more fluent 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 him open a checking account, a credit card, a debit card, a savings account, I made him shop, whether it's the American Express Savings account or the Capital One.

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 is, but from 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, something like that. So I said, hey, let me help you. Like you don't need to sleep on the floor and do any of the stuff. He looked at me and says, Dad, you've done enough.

Like what? You know, 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.

Like, just let me do it from here on now. You paid for my school. You did all that. 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 don't they don't take pride in their own things and and I have you know when I give my kids money it's funny they don't like it they don't they give it back to me they're like that's not the way you raised this so I think that drive the pain of whatever I did financial pain because there's the only thing I understood right yeah I couldn't do the other things I didn't understand enough but that financial pain each time sort of gave him resolute um so I don't know 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?

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, symphic and others, about work, like all these things. You live by that mantra. I try to live by it. I try to remind us, 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, what's a personal goal that you have for yourself, a business goal that you have for the business, and a family goal you have for the family? I think a personal goal from myself is probably just to have more experiences of different cultures, different countries. I think when I go to different places, it humbles me a little bit more to see what people have, people don't have.

It makes me appreciate things from seeing Cuba. Yeah. The place in South America. Indonesia. Indonesia, right? So I think it, so I think for me and my personal goals, 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. Oh, business. Yes. Wow.

I like to see us as the most dominant commercial business bank in California. that would be the goal just to be number to hit that I think to have size we'd 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 the largest in California but if we focused our core competency just on Who's the largest in California now? California Bank and Trust California Bank and Trust is owned by Zions so it depends on your question of

the largest bank headquarter maybe in Orange County but that's skewed too because Wells is headquartered here. Oh, yeah. Commercial banking, I mean. I don't know if there's a, I don't think there's very many banks

that are pure like us. Yeah. They usually get into all these ancillary businesses. There's a lot coming up. Insurance and all the other things. Doing the commercial banking. I don't think there's anyone, you know, at 10 billion that's purely a commercial bank.

But I like us to be dominant, just continuing to bank, small and middle market businesses like we talked about earlier. And then what about a personal, I mean, a family go for the family? God, I mean, I'm the 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, you know, I probably as you can say about grandkids. My kids would kill me. They're too young, but, you know. They're up there. I mean, it's almost time, and you're going to be a grandparent. But you're not even 50 yet. 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 them for the holidays and continue to, you know, travel together and experience things together. I think what... Do you still travel with them even though they're not in the house? Yeah, still do. Where are they at? Um, one's 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. You were on the other side of it, you know, as a parent. I was young when I had kids. I think my first kid I had when I was 25. Wow. I was young.

Yeah, I was 31. Yeah, we were young, so. But a lot of my friends are having kids now, so, yeah. Now? Some of them are. And they're 50s, 40s? 50s and late 40s. They really milked it, you know?

They milked their single years. Yeah, but it's not the mileage of the cars. Where the car has been is most important. Yeah, that's right. I think. I'd like to close out with the same question with every yes. and when you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?

I hope God tells me that I was a good man. You were. You were. Raise good kids. Serve the community. Continue to serve and do good work. But you know what? Take a break.

I know. Take a break is hard for me. That's the one thing that I haven't been able to do. I get it because we're all wired just to just win all day, you know. Yeah. With work and the family, it's hard. for me to take a break. How's that? I should, but there'll be plenty of time like they say when you're dead. Yeah, hopefully God give you many years of life. Yeah. 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 good to pause, even with the team. 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. I mean, when I stop enjoying it. So I have an on-and-off switch with work. Some people can go from first, second, third, fourth, fifth year, 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?

But you're off only when you're sleeping. I know. So that's why I think when I stop enjoying what I do, I'm going to 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 days or weeks or months or whatever, when 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 going to stop. So I don't know what that means.

I don't have a defined, not attached the outcome. I don't know if that means five years now, 10 years now, 20 years now. But I have this gut 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. Evo, you've been a blessing to have on the show. Lots of nuggets of wisdom. A prominent public figure. I hope the viewers today learned a lot from Evo. Evo, T. Jan, 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. get of commerce west let's go thank you all right thank you it's a pleasure