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

25:06Yeah. 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 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.

25:47I 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 guess I was close. How about the Dodgers? How are those Lakers doing? 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 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 so you would deflect totally just ignore the question and and i should have just answered it i guess looking back um 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.

26:39And, and, um, yeah, so I, 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, 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.

27:11And 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 sponge throughout that process. And that helped me a lot. Now, 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, excessive compliance? What advice would you give to someone who's looking at starting a bank right now?

27:43So 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, 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, J.P.

28:23Morgan, 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 competency. And that's probably true for a lot of businesses, not just banking. yeah 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 her products we don't understand why you're selling suits 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.

29:06But 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. Let me do some home loans. Let me 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 narrow in your expertise. And your core competency. Yeah. 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 J.P. Morgan, then you spread. You spread your wings and you... You don't need to wait until that big. You don't need to.

29:37No, you don't. But that's why I said that. And that's true for most businesses, I think. So you guys aren't doing mortgages now? You guys just do SBA financing? 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 Loubs and things of that nature.

30:09But 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 &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 J.P. 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.

30:46So 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. 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 580 FICO on an FHA. We don't do any of that. We don't do FICO-driven.

31:15We don't have matrices. 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.

31:51I go, why nine? Nine's my lucky number, Evo. Hmm, okay. So we came back with a nine-tier money market account. So what do you have to do to get to the nine-tier? 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. They're like, you know, in 40 years, I've never had anyone create my own money market account. I said, yeah, we just created it 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 West Bank is we tailor-make those loans.

32:23That'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 is 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 tailor-made to you.

32:51So 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 a J.P. Morgan 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 they should go to a bank. It's off the shelf. 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.

33:26This 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 a 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. 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?

33:56I 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 the communities usually need the most is they need a banker that actually helps. So 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 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 that are no revenue or pre-revenue.

34:27It'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. I mean, I don't even know. What has 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. Yeah. So I think with the failure of 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 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, just regular retail clients, from getting more of their business.

35:15I mean more price-conscious business because I think a lot of banks are considering, you've heard lately, about charging more, getting away from free checking accounts and all that because of 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 banking. 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.

36:01Yeah. It's already happening. It's already being implemented. If you've probably have tried it, the professional version of ChatGPT 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 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 reeducating the population to do other things.

36:41So it's almost like that book, if you ever read Henry Ford's book, it was interesting. He went down to a horseshoe convention in New York 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 is getting like, 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. He goes, I think you need tires. You don't need horseshoes. And I think they lost that somehow in the meeting.

37:16So 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, it can do research that would have taken you five or ten people over a week, it does in minutes, right? Seconds. 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 perplexed 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 wanted.

37:53But that's all you got to do to write a paper now. 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, 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 a tablet. It is, but I think AI will be so much faster than even that.

38:19Hopefully it books your seats for you. 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 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 have four kids, awesome wife, and you don't really need to grind this hard anymore.

38:54Yet 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? That'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 where I have to stop.

39:39So what I mean by this. When do you think that's going to be? 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 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, 60s, 70s, you are mentally smarter, but you're physically not able to do what you're able to do.

40:23So 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'm number one, right? Three things. Number one, I'm conscious about understanding where my physical limitation. I can feel it more now. So where I used to go three days without sleep, I go three days without sleep now.

40:54I'm like, oh. When you 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 is like, I turn on my buddy, I'll go 90. Let's go, right? But there's a point, the physical limitation, point number one was, 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 ailments and all these other things. So that was one. Number two was understanding the trade-off of life.

41:31somewhere along the line um 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 so that was great next 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 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.

42:06And 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 to 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, Eva, 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 minutes he's made 10 tens of millions dollars um 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 never gave you i want to give you one advice i go what the advice is life is like a poem we talk about cars i drove down a few months ago to the ferrari dealership i got in the car first of all that 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.

42:56I took it at 35 miles per hour, and by then, my back was hurting. I walked out and realized, 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 whole 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 needed to make more money. I needed to save more, whatever it was, or my work was more important.

43:28Then 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'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.

44:04One 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 your own bullshit someone comes up to you and says hey uh joe um i got a car dealership here i'm gonna 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 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 um believing your own bullshit that's how you end up you're creating more stress so 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 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 like 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 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 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.

45:33And two, the other advice is this. Some people told me, well, I'm in this business of selling coffee mugs. I sold a coffee, 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 luck. So when you have the coffee business, the coffee mug business again, it doesn't mean you're going to create the same level of success. So you got to think and pause about that once in a while. That's a good way to put it. We're in a fortunate position with our company. Like, you know, you really can't recreate another company like this.

46:02So 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 of refi booms. And here we are. Those booms won't come. It doesn't matter what hedge fund comes in and invest in you.

46:35Yes. 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 yep we didn't know i know you know we didn't know the only person i get famous right now on social media instantly is donald trump yeah he did and he has like he just instantly fame well look at that media company that he has i think i think it has like a crazy 50 or 30 billion dollar market cap or something like that it only does like four million a quarter or something like that it doesn't 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 yeah and they move the needle much quicker yeah 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 yeah which is what we do here too by the way i agree i agree um so uh 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 i i don't unwind i don't have a routine to unwind i don't meditate i don't do yoga so and my workouts are very sporadic right it's if i can fit one in great if i don't i don't fit it in um i think my kids help me unwind if i'm just being honest i think talking to them um just about their lives and what's going on and maybe sometimes diving into what I'm doing a little bit.

48:28So 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 ago. That's a long sport. It is. That takes too long. I'm biking, like maybe I go once a month. I used to go every weekend, but I think the tradeoff is just them. I watch my daughter play hockey. I watch my son wrestle. I watch one in robotics. I watch one open up his own little thrift store. I mean, that's kind of the only way. I'm just thinking of that question.

49:04I 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 unwind. That's not unwinding, though. No, it's not a wanting. 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?

49:37We're all kind of in the same age, going through the same BS or whatever you want to call it in life. 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 used to kind of hold it all in.

50:10And 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 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 six but obviously my significant other said no so I ended up with four um but not a lot of dads with four you know me you you you have four and I I love them to death I mean um 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 i 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 out grind everybody to meditate i've done all those other things but uh i've done the running of the bulls you know as 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'd hike machu picchu you know that's sort of unwindy you travel a lot you know yeah and um 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 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 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 um they gave them all the proper upbringing but it was the drive so um what i wanted to teach my kids was the drive so i'll give you this one story about my one of my sons i won't even name who it is um so here's my son right so i have these five golden rules in life that they grew up with right and um my son i'm trying to teach how to drive now 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 gonna have to drive so uh one day i uh i wake him up i said i'm taking you to school you're gonna 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 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 effing 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 killed that guy why is everybody yelling at me i didn't almost kill the kid he almost killed the kid.

54:07So 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 going to pick him up from school today. Don't, don't do that. I said, look, one of my rules I have is you, people tell you, you fall off the horse. You got to get back on. I tell my kids, you got to get back on and 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 gotta finish the race so I show up to school and I said uh he looks at me goes what are you doing here I said you're gonna 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 that's a bad side from God but all right I sit here we're driving home turn the Radeon 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 I got like Jesus two accidents in a day I go you just got in a car accident and you hit a personal 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 so I think the biggest thing for me with my kids was to make sure they had their own drive and their own passion.

55:33So 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 on finishing things. 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 notice 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. 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.

56:16I'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 the 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 could teach them, 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.

56:53And in the stock brokerage account, at least 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. Puts all of this, you know, grandma's check, everything, birthday gifts, 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 how big a position they take but the goal is when they pick a stock in the technology field we 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 and 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 So I'll give you one experience.

57:52So 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 they're like, no, Dad, I know what I'm doing. OK. 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 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 gotta be kidding me you're telling me i have to wait until next christmas to meet us well i guess you can wait until february march april may june until you recover but it's gonna 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 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 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 you're getting some generic shoes that have no brand and you're gonna wear them in front of all your friends.

59:17They 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 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, a savings account. I I made him 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?

59:49All the things that I thought I could do, 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 and things like that. So I said, hey, let me help you. Like, you don't need to sleep on the floor and do all of this stuff. He looked at me and says, Dad, you've done enough. I go, what? You've done enough. You don't need to do anything.

1:00:23I'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 out. 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 take pride in their own things? And I have, you know, when I give my kids money, it's funny. They don't like it. They give it back to me. They're like, that's not the way you raised us.

1:00:55So I think that drive, the pain of whatever, I did financial pain because it's the only thing I understood, right? 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. That's a good way to put it. Now, is there a favorite quote that you live by? Like what's your favorite quote?

1:01:21I 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, something and others, about work, Like all of these, we're attached. You live by that mantra. I try to live by it. 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, 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?

1:01:53uh i think a personal goal for myself is probably um just to have more experiences of different cultures uh 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 yeah places in south america indonesia indonesia right so i think it so i think for me 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 i do like to eat so uh i love experiencing different foods and cultures so that's one uh the second question was for my family business oh commerce west wow i'd like to see us as the most dominant commercial business bank in california that would be the goal just to be What's the number to hit that?

1:02:47Just a – 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 of the largest in California. But if we focused our core competency just on – Who's the largest in California now?

1:03:05California Bank and Trust? California Bank and Trust 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. Oh, yeah. Commercial banking.

1:03:23I 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 at$10 billion that's purely a commercial bank. But I'd like us to be dominant, just continue to bank small and middle market businesses like we talked about earlier. And what about a personal, I mean a family, go for the family.

1:03:55God, 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.

1:04:11I probably didn't say about grandkids my kids would kill me they're too young they're up there it's almost time and you're going to be a grandparent you're not even 50 yet I'm not looking forward to them having grandkids tomorrow but I think keeping that legacy or that family unity together and seeing them for the holidays and continue to travel together and experience things together do you still travel with them even though they're not in the house? yeah I still do Where are they at? 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.

1:04:46You 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. But a lot of my friends are having kids now. Now? Some of them are, yeah. In their 50s, 40s? 50s and late 40s. They really milked it, you know? They did. They milked their single years. Yeah. But it's not the mileage of the car. It's 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 guest. And when you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?

1:05:28I hope God tells me I was a good man. You were. You were. raise good kids serve the community yeah continue to serve and do good work and yeah but you know what take a break i know take a break a break is hard for me that's the one thing that i haven't been able to do and i get it because we're all wired just to just win all day you know 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 yeah hopefully uh 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 um 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 from 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 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 i stop enjoying it so i have an on and off switch with work uh 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 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?

1:06:56So - 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 gonna walk away. I think it's when I stop enjoying it. And I'll know. For some reason, I just feel in my gut that 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 little bit more as I get older about the push and the pull.

1:07:34And 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 to the outcome. I don't know if that means it's 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 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.

1:08:09Evo Tijan, 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 bank with Wells. Big waste of time. Hit up Commerce West. Let's go. thank you alright thank you