Transcript - John Hope Bryant

Financial Literacy Closes the Wealth Gap with John Hope Bryant

Rahbin Shyne: Thank you for listening to 365 brothers the podcast. I'm your host, Robin Shine. I am so excited that you are here listening to these amazing collection of brothers that I have curated by reaching out to men from various professions, all parts of the United States.

We hear their wisdom, their triumph. We hear their perspectives on life. Please remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast because you don't want to miss even one of these.

Follow us at 365 brothers on Instagram. You can also find us on Facebook. Check out our website, 365 brothers.com. our guest today is John Hope Bryant. He's an entrepreneur, author, philanthropist, and a prominent thought leader on financial inclusion, economic empowerment, and financial dignity.

Mister Bryant is the founder, chairman and CEO of Operation Hope Incorporated, which is one of the largest nonprofits dedicated to the financial literacy and economic empowerment of Americans both young and old.

And you know I'm all about this. Which brings me to the book. His newest bestseller is financial literacy for all, disrupting struggle, advancing financial freedom, and building a new american middle class.

Just released in April,

and it hit number one on the USA Today national bestseller list and Publishers Weekly. Now Mister Bryant was named one of Atlanta's business chronicles, the power 100 most influential atlantis of 2020 and most admired CEO's in 2018.

He's been an innovator of the year for American Banker. Five past United States presidents have recognized his work.

He has served as an advisor to three past sitting us presidents from both parties, and he's responsible for financial literacy becoming the policy of the United States federal government. This is big.

He's received hundreds of awards. I know you're not surprised, including citations for his work by Oprah Winfrey's use your life award. After you've read his latest bestseller, you may want to check out a few of his others.

Just a few other titles here. The memo. Five rules for your economic liberation.

Another, how the poor can save capitalism, rebuilding the path for the middle class. And this one I really love. Love leadership. The new way to lead in a fear based world.

And so I'm going to stop talking for a minute and introduce John Hope Bryant. How you doing today, Mister Bryant?

John Hope Bryant: I'm deeply honored to be with you. Thanks for having me. I love the philosophy of your program and of course, your spirit draw. We're not human beings having a spiritual experience.

We're spiritual beings having a human experience. So energy matters. And so I love your spirit and energy, and I'm here for it.

Awesome.

Rahbin Shyne: Well, I'm here for all you're committed to. Before we go on to the questions, is there anything you'd like to share with our listeners in a general way?

John Hope Bryant: Well, we're sitting in a moment in history right now, and the history does not feel historic when you're sitting in it. It just feels like another day.

But that doesn't mean the moment is not historic. I'm in the city of Atlanta right now,

and doctor king lived in the city for 13 years, went to the parent teacher night,

went to grocery stores, sat in a range of endless office meetings, staff meetings. Every day was not I have a dream or something magical. In fact, most days we're not,

and yet romanticized and really remember these iconic moments and these crescendos. And I would just tell everybody that I've never seen a moment like this. I've never felt a moment like this.

I believe it's a third reconstruction.

And I think it started with the pandemic and George Floyd's murder. And by 2030, the world will look in ways that you won't really be able to recognize. AI amongst a range of other things, that the transformation of our political spectrum, even irrespective of what happens this year.

And I think we're going to be just fine. It's going to be a little messy, but we'll be just fine. And I just don't want everybody to know. You can't subcontract your democracy or your freedom or your participation in it.

And I think financial literacy is a civil rights issue of this generation. I think the new color is currency, green, not black or white or red or blue. And I'd encourage everybody here to buy a copy of this new book, financial literacy for all.

My other books are fine. Buy them if you want, listen to them you want. But this one book, financial literacy for all, buy copy of this book.

I want you to write your family's name on the inside page and donate it to a local school and or library that's underserved in your neighborhood. And offer to come in and teach a class using the book as a textbook to inspire young people to model what they see.

And that's what everybody can do now. We can do much more, but you can do at least that. Buy a book, find it intentional. Find a school that you think has challenges.

Send it to the principal, the superintendent.

Make a phone call. Let them know that you're willing to come in.

And if you can, reward the kids who finish the program, the finished literacy program with high marks, offer to give them an internship where you work.

I mean, you got to do something right now.

Rahbin Shyne: Yeah, like, just double down on everything you said. I agree with you on financial literacy being a civil rights issue, that we hear a lot more about the intergenerational wealth gap over the, you know, four years doing this podcast and having multiple conversations with people and just really getting deeper into the historical laws,

policies that have created this gap. And many of those laws and policies are gone. But the habits of mind have not. The habits of family have not. And that's what your book, what operation hope, your organization, that is what's really getting to.

And I know that's going to come up in some of our other questions. So, first question,

what are your favorite words? A favorite quote, saying book or a metaphor?

John Hope Bryant: A word. Every year that I embrace,

intentionality is my word. This year,

everything I do is intentional.

Every word I use, every place I go, everything I lean in on, everything I sponsor, every conversation that I have, like this one,

it's all intentional. I like the word. Also elegant. I think that processes need to be elegant.

I think that philosophies needs to have an elegance to them. I don't mean elegance in the sense of being hotty toddy. I don't mean elegance being blingy. I mean elegance.

Instances of having a flow, a natural cadence of flow. A narrative. Things should have a narrative. I mean, going in public on Wall street is storytelling.

It's a narrative.

What is the narrative of your life?

What is the narrative of our lives? America's not a country. She's an idea.

And we can make her anything we want.

That things should have an elegance, and we should agree that we are better together.

That in relationships, the math multiplies.

I like math. It doesn't have an opinion. There's a phrase I love that's a melody Hobson phrase that I've taken.

But with relationships, you get multiplication and not addition. Because in a relationship, two plus two must equal six, eight or ten. Or why are you doing it?

Rahbin Shyne: I love that. Or why are you doing it? I'm delighted to hear that you have a word a year. A friend and I, we do the same. My word this year is power.

And it has been a dive discovery. That's the wonderful thing. You think you know a word, but when you take that word on for the year, you discover the nooks and crannies, the opposites, the unders, the overs.

It's pretty cool. So I love that. Has anything showed up since we're seven months into the year around, having your focus beyond the word intentionality, is there anything that's shown up that surprised you about intentionality as a way of being or way of doing.

John Hope Bryant: Yes. That if you're in intentional about bad things, it has more intensity than being intentional about good things. It's easier to be bad than it is to be good. Badness is failed goodness.

Lucifer is a fallen angel. God gives the devil a punk permission to exist. But the devil and human evil plays on your laziness,

plays on our insecurities and our fears and our arrogance and plays on. On short termism.

So look at our politics right now and how common sense gets laid to the side for the sake of immediate political expediency. President Bill Clinton once told me, it's hard to get somebody to agree to the truth when the lie is paying their paycheck.

Rahbin Shyne: I think that's just a great mic drop right there. That is very true.

John Hope Bryant: The intensity of the lie and how it doubles down and tripled down on its own build. I can see what happened in Germany with Hitler. I really. I couldn't understand it before.

I could understand how otherwise decent, loving people went from that's my neighbor,

to, well, that's that jew, to that's that something, you know? Name I can't say. And then all of a sudden, no, that's my enemy. And, oh, now he's unhuman. And now I'm gonna close his shop.

I'm gonna take his liberty. I'm gonna put him into a concentration camp. I'm gonna kill him.

I couldn't understand it before. I'm like, how could that possibly? I can see. I can see now how a charismatic and manipulative person at the right moment in time,

where people are just insecure enough,

can flip otherwise good people to do some really bad things.

And at scale like we have, this country is divided right now,

and part of the division makes no sense to me. It means not rational at all.

But to rationalize is to tell rational lies.

Rahbin Shyne: I'm right there with you. This summer, I taught world history for five weeks, and it was an opportunity to go back and look at World War Two. I saw the rhetoric.

I've studied how Hitler practiced in the mirror, making sure his facial expressions, his movements. I studied all the tools he used to manipulate people, right? So I thought I got it.

They were just manipulated. But I never really saw it. Hadn't considered it from the perspective of the ones who were following along. And you're absolutely right. When I hear some people being interviewed and the things they say are counter to their own interests, it really is fascinating.

And like you, I can see now in a clearer way how quickly one can move from one to the other, you know what I mean? Like, in a matter of a year, you could get someone to go from, that's my friend, as you said, through that process.

John Hope Bryant: So, yeah, and, you know, maybe, folks,

we're talking about our jewish brothers and sisters,

but maybe they're now talking about you and me. I've talked to some of my jewish brothers and sisters about some of them pulling away from De and I, and some of them being less philanthropic, because they're angry about x, y, or z, and they have a right to be angry after October 7,

which all anger is hurt. Your feelings are hurt, you're angry that you're. Your feelings are hurt, and you're in pain. And so anger is the reaction of that. But I said, you're aligning yourself in this regard with a heartened view.

And after they come after me, they're coming after you. And the opposite is also true. Like,

African Americans have to be very careful,

because society feels like it's done every. To them, they feel like, look, we.

We've done it all. It didn't work. And so that what's coming next might not be love or hate, it might be an attempted radical indifference.

And artificial intelligence might help with that, actually. So I just, again, I think we're in this really dynamic time. Everybody has to be very careful, and you cannot just keep doing the same thing you were doing.

You cannot react. You have to respond. You got to think three times and act once. You need to be trying to talk without being offensive,

listen without being defensive.

It'll always lead, even my adversary, with their dignity,

because if you don't, they'll spend the rest of their life trying to make you miserable. It becomes personal.

And Doctor King realized that black people were not the majority. Like, we didn't have bombs and bullets and war machines and tanks and all that stuff. So when some of his aides start tomorrow, we're going to burn this shit up.

He's like, hey, man, beyond the fact that I'm nonviolent, like, mathematically we don't even have the armament or the numbers. Like, it's not even a good strategy.

And of course, Doctor King was right. I mean, out of all the people in the sixties who tried all these different strategies, violence, anger, whatever, like, the only one who passed four pieces of legislation and whose strategy actually worked was the guy who stepped over mess and not in it as Doctor King,

my mentor, Andrew Young, my personal mentor, who lives around the corner, 92 years young, last living lieutenant to Doctor King. And Doctor King wanted his adversary to win, too. It wasn't win lose.

It was win win.

Rahbin Shyne: I'm going to jump over my next question, actually go to this other, because I was looking over your operation hope website, and just at the very start of it, you have a statement.

I'm just going to read a little piece of it. And it says, diversity and opportunity as the cornerstones for economic growth, sustaining the United States position as a global leader and ensuring our shared prosperity.

And I just loved that. And I underlined shared, because it's not just about one group getting ahead. Like, we're all. We all got to move ahead. And I also love, like in your book, the addressing how poor white whites, working class whites have also been left behind and do not see that one getting ahead and the other not.

It just doesn't work. It doesn't work for our global dominance. And let's be clear, we do enjoy our global dominance. Let's not pretend that we're something else. And so for that to continue going forward,

I saw that on your site, and I thought, now, that is something really worth getting behind, because that wealth gap, it's most pronounced with African Americans and white Americans, but it's really a class issue.

I realize that financial literacy is what's going to get us ahead, but if we look back, what do you think is either the single most damaging policy that has led to the wealth gap, our financial behaviors, or the single worst habit?

John Hope Bryant: The single worst policy was a policy that was not completed because Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

So you had January 1860, the field action 15, that was approved by Lincoln and really executed by General Sherman in Savannah, Georgia, and that provided 40 acres to every Union soldier family that fought in the battle for our freedom.

And that the next month, those same former slaves worked at land so hard that it was like, oh, my God, they're so industrious. Give them a mule. So call that machinery.

So now you have land and machinery.

Then the next month, the bank was created,

and that was a freedman's bank,

and that was to domicile your savings to give you access to capital, to finance the land and machinery.

And the next month, Abraham Lincoln promised blacks the right to vote.

And Booth said, that's the bridge too far as the last speech you'll ever give.

And he's assassinated them in April, which is, oddly enough, financial literacy month today, April. So also, the next one was assassinated 100 years later when he talked about money and poor people.

And Frederick Douglass, who was the advisor to Lincoln at that time really helped Lincoln to turn the corner of, I think, moral leadership during this time.

I don't think that Lincoln would describe it this way, but this was a black jewish business plan.

So you had a four month period that if you encapsulate it,

if that hadn't been completed and Lincoln had not been assassinated,

you would have had black people as stakeholders and capital providers and entrepreneurs and landowners and small business owners. And,

I mean, we would have got financial literacy in 1860, 518, 66, seven, 8910. By 1875,

my God, we would just be on absolute momentum drive. And by 1890,

we would be one of the largest landowners and small business owners and entrepreneurs in the country. We would have it literally. It would have been the black jewish business plan.

Maybe people hate you, maybe discriminate against you, maybe we don't like you, but they can't ignore you. You're the taxpayer.

But that's not what happened. So that was the biggest policy, miss we had a freedman that created the freedmen's hospitals and freedmen's schools, all that stuff. But the freedmen's bank failed, and this country is a capitalist democracy.

Your day's not about God or love. Your days about money.

That then leads to the biggest mistake we make, the biggest bad habit we have, which is that we are net consumers with no understanding that making a living is literally nothing, that having cash and money allows you to make a living.

But that's why they call making a living making a living, not making a life.

Literally making a living in real time.

And if you stop working, you stop making a living.

Way to build a life in a capitalist democracy is to build wealth.

And you build wealth in your sleep.

Stocks,

bonds, home ownership. Number one way you build wealth in America is home ownership.

Small business creation, entrepreneurship, higher education,

things that compound when you sleep.

And we missed that whole memo. So we have, like, $1.6 trillion black people, last time I checked, consumer spending. But 92% of that consumption.

Rahbin Shyne: As opposed to investment.

John Hope Bryant: Yeah, go to the club. We don't own it.

We don't even realize it's the music business. Most of the time, the business of music, we don't think about it. It's the entertainment business, the business of entertainment, the sports business is the business of sports and so on and so forth.

You know, it's. It's like Malcolm X said, we've been bamboozled. We've been tricked. We've been fooled. We're really smart people. In fact, I'll say we're brilliant people when the rules are published and the playing field is level.

We kill it.

But what happens when somebody's hiding the ball from you and it's hiding is the whole ball game, and that's capitalism and free enterprise. Society has hit the ball from us for 400 years.

I'm trying to. I'm trying to make it visible to the ball.

Rahbin Shyne: Yes, you are. And at the very beginning, like, you didn't waste any time putting in there about getting your book into schools, into libraries, and having people talk about and understand financial literacy.

And as I was kind of reading through some of your stuff,

as an educator with, you know, almost 30 years and K twelve and a couple years community college teaching,

I'm always thinking about how we can change education. And you're certainly not the first to point out that it's a shame that we don't have financial literacy taught in schools.

It's not even truly taught when we teach economics in k twelve.

But something about reading through your stuff, I was like, wow, you know what? Why don't they have like, a whole citizens training? Like, that's what schools should have is citizenship training.

We have math, we have social studies, we have English and science.

And it would be a coordinated program, just like we do with math. We don't start with algebra and then skip over to multiplication and then double back to calculus. There's an order to it.

Same with English. There's an order to that. And I was like, wow, what if, you know, 6th grade it's civic responsibility. 7th grade it's a dab into financial responsibility,

just learning what it is to be an empowered citizen, and wow, like, within one generation, not even a generation, within ten years, those kids graduating our nation would be China.

What? China who?

John Hope Bryant: So let's now build on what you just said.

So let's just take one act.

The average credit score for African Americans is 620 in this country.

That means that I don't care how well educated you are, how many PhDs you have,

how wonderful a decent of a human being you are. You go to church on Sunday, virtually or in person. You give you tithe, you vote.

If your credit score is 620, you can't live the american dream. In fact, half of black America wakes up locked out of the free enterprise system.

You can't get a decent auto loan at 610 600. 580 is a pimping loan. They're pimping you.

You're getting a loan from a secondary car dealership. They're taking back the paper. It's 18% to 28% interest rate. The car is going to explode on you. And then it's not Mercedes is Mercedes payments.

The car is going to explode on you within 18 months. Something's going to go wrong. They're going to take the car back, sue you for the difference, repair the car in the back repair bay, because really their business is maintenance and finance, not car sales, and sell it to somebody else and do it and wrench and repeat it all over again.

You can't get a mortgage loan, a decent mortgage, and below 700 credit score, you can't get a small business loan, risky credit, certainly below 700 credit score. So it doesn't matter how nice you are,

you're just locked out now can access capital and you're getting it from poking them or payday loan lender or check cash or whatever, right? The interest rate is so high, the only way you can pay it back is through illegal activity.

So now you're going to jail. Are you going to get murdered? Or. So you see, if you just get the credit scores up to 700 in the black community. I know this is going to sound really crazy, somebody listening that's going to say, you had me, John,

until you said that I was with you. But this is just too simplistic and I mean it. If you. I was with Mayor Paul Young yesterday in Memphis. I said, if residents of Memphis just raise your credit scores 100 points,

zip code by zip code, neighborhood by neighborhood, you'll stabilize Memphis within five years. Within your term in mayor four years, you'll have a radically different economic vibration if the life expectancy goes up.

If you live in a 550 credit score neighborhood, you're life expectancy is 61 years of age. You live in a 700 credits per neighborhood, your life expectancy is 81 years of age.

Think about that now.

That's 20 years. That's 20 years, 15 minutes apart. And crime goes down. Hope goes up, life fantasy goes up, two parent households go up, optimism goes up, trust goes up, self esteem, confidence goes up, access to capital goes up, cost of capital goes down.

How could you lose?

How could you not stabilize if you just raised? But it's not about the credit score. It's a trending indicator of everything underneath it.

Rahbin Shyne: Thank you, because I was just about to add that, because when you were saying it, and I'm not gonna lie, the first time I was like, focus on credit scores. And then I took half a second and I was like, oh, yeah, because that focus on your credit score is really a focus on not being overextended.

It's a focus on having a budget. It shifts the perspective from consumption I'm going to use your words. You move from making a living to creating a life. And it's all in the behaviors that shift, because when you are focused on that credit score, and trust me, I went through my phase in my twenties,

I ain't going to lie to you,

where I had to go to consumer credit counselors. And I've been there, got my little on campus loans, thought I knew what I was doing at 19 and 20, and I knew nothing.

And if I'm honest, and some of my listeners have heard this before, even with all my little education, JD and all that, it wasn't until I started teaching economics that I really got to understand it.

And I was so glad that they moved me from history to Econ. And it truly was fortuitous. Which brings me to a question that I may know the answer to.

I may not, but I always ask guests,

was there a person, moment or event that had a significant impact on your life or changed the trajectory of your life? What's that for you?

John Hope Bryant: I mean, there's been a. There's been two dozen. And I. And one of the reasons I love my books that I write is it gives me a chance to recognize people who are not household names that the world may not remember, may not know about, and certainly would forget.

So every one of my books, you'll see me signify not only just in acknowledgments and credits, but throughout the book, of course, my mother, Wendigo Smith, my dad, Johnny Willis Smith.

People who had impact, my friends and all that stuff growing up, people who worked with me, operation. My chief of staff of 30 years, Rachel Dobb, my dear friend, Ron McGrew, Lance treason has been with me for 30, almost 30 years, so on and so forth.

But there has been these outsized influencers in the business side.

I just sent a note to Bill Rogers, CEO of Truist.

Without him committing to hope inside and allowing me into what used to be called Suntrust,

I wouldn't have 50 locations today. It took a chance on me. Right.

Rahbin Shyne: Can you tell us a little bit about that? Like how you met or what that conversation was? How did. What has bloomed into this partnership?

How did that happen?

John Hope Bryant: Oh, it happened pretty normally. Like all of my relationships. I was meeting with his former CEO, Jim Wells, who was CEO of Suntrust. And Jim Wells was retiring, but Jim Wells asked me to come by and have lunch with.

Somebody wanted me to meet. Somebody wanted me to meet was the chief financial officer, I believe it was. His name was Bill Rogers. Bill didn't say much at lunch. I think he was very interesting as a person.

I didn't realize Bill was just checking me out, and we had a nice lunch. It was all good. And Bill made a decision that I was a real person, unbeknownst to me.

And we nurtured a relationship. I think initially it was a tactical relationship. I could help him with certain things. He could help me. I needed his money.

But we built a real friendship in time, and we had real conversations about really important stuff, and many times we didn't agree. But through that constructive friction,

we both grew as human beings. And I learned early on to talk about,

you can disagree without being disagreeable, and you want to talk without being offensive and listen without being defensive. And always, as I said, leave your adversary with your dignity.

And we were never adversarial, but we had different views. A lot of my friends who are concerned, we have different views, but we make each other better people. And there came a time where I could help him solve a problem that he had regulatory,

and I think he remembered that. And then I had a problem fiscally, and he helped me with that. Give me some grants, whatever. And then when I was trying to grow operation hope, I needed credibility.

So back then, he was the 10th largest bank in America, and now he was the 6th largest.

And I asked, let me put my hope inside of his bank branch. It never been done. It never was a nonprofit inside of a bank branch ever in America. He said, sure, but let me do it my way.

So we did one location and we did two, and I asked him for the money. He said no.

And then he came back and said, okay, the model worked.

I'll give you some money,

come by, pick up a check. It was a million dollars. But he said, you want to grow this? Yep. I'm thinking now 20 locations. I mean, my big dream was to go from two to 20 locations.

All of a sudden, now everybody had to take me seriously in banking. So now I have 1500 locations. And there was this guy named Tony Ressler, who I met through a guy who works with him, Michael Arrigh.

And Tony wrestler is not in banking. He's a billionaire. And Tony and I did, didn't agree on his philanthropy and how he was going about it, and I told him, and he didn't like that I told him, but he respected that I had an opinion, and we built a friendship.

And it was not just philanthropy. He was doing some things with charter schools, which I actually supported, but he was unbeknownst to himself and the way he was going about it.

He was criticizing public schools, and I ran public schools, would not take that very nicely. And I said, hey, Tony, these people can be doing the wrong things, being very well intentioned, like, be really nice.

I mean, nobody wakes up in the morning, said, oh, let me screw up like these kids. Like,

let me run this food district on the ground. So he listened to me and took my counsel.

So when I called him later on to say, I need. I'd like to be a donor of Operation Hope, my philanthropy,

he said, sure, come see me. And I flew in town looking for $25,000 and walked out with just the $25,000 of a grant. But he also said, what are you doing in business?

I mentioned my real estate company I was going to start,

and he said, I'm in. And I said, we can't be with that. I've already got an apartment. He said, I love your vision. I'm in. Just tell whoever it is I'm in for half.

About a week later,

just did it. Steve. Talk about philanthropy is 25 grand. My business is 3 million. A week later he says, you know, I've been thinking about your idea.

He's really smart.

Why do 3 million when you do 30 million?

Why do 30 million? You can do 130 million. We're in for 100.

Yeah. So he ended up, he and his partner end up putting $88 million, not calling 90 million, into one of my private companies. I grew it, sold it for $120,000,000.02 years ago.

That changed my life. And now I'm doing business with Tony's brother, Richard Ressler, for something that might be ten times as big as the deal I just did. But all that just came from relationship capital and treating people with dignity and fairness and treating them like you want to be treated.

Rahbin Shyne: And I hear all that. And then, you know, I also understand that when you approach them, you had a very sound idea, a very sound foundation.

And even though I'm on your team, I'm just going to pitch that. I noticed you have a 1 million black businesses project that, you know, just for anyone who's out there, who, at whatever level of business you are, just, you know, go check out a site, and a link will be in the show notes,

because I noticed, you know, like, to be prepared.

John Hope Bryant: We're always hiring. We have 400 employees, one of the largest black led organizations, certainly black male led organizations in America. I mean, 400 employees, you can count that on probably one or two hands in the country.

So we're growing, and we're always hiring. So yeah. Go to the websites for the different entities and check it out.

Rahbin Shyne: Yeah, yeah. Very cool. I do want to get to my regular questions, but I think the information you have is just so valuable. So I'm going to get to those real quick.

But this partnership where you, where you're in branches, can you just share a little paragraph about what that is, that that partnership is how are you in branches?

John Hope Bryant: Well, that's what I just mentioned with.

It started with sign trust. Now, true is that's that idea. Now we're at. We're also in Wells Fargo. We're in bank of America, we're in Versailles, Rising bank, Regions Bank, US bank, Pnc Bank.

I mean, that Sonova's bank. We are black banks. We are the only nonprofit allowed to operate inside of a bank branch in us history. And our job is to get the bank out of the no business.

Sorry, you declined for a loan and back into the yes business. You've been approved credit for prime credit by getting the debt down of that applicant through coaching and counseling, getting the savings rate up for that same applicant and getting the credit score up.

So for somebody making $48,000 a year,

we are getting, in six months, your credit score up 54 points. We're getting your debt down $3,800. We're getting your savings up $2,000. So the bank can say yes for credit.

Rahbin Shyne: Okay. And so is this like a service where they go into the bank and in these banks where you're located, there's access to coaching? Is this a platform? It's a person who's the bank manager refers them to.

John Hope Bryant: I have full time employees from me. They work, work for me inside the bank branch. So we can do things that the bank can't do. We can say things the bank can't.

I. We can do things the bank can do.

We got flexibility. If the bank doesn't have. Oh, yes. A whole thing. It's a whole.

Rahbin Shyne: Okay, I'm glad I asked. Okay. See, because I was like, I hear you, but what does that look like?

John Hope Bryant: Go to our location map and operation hope to see where we're located in 40 plus states across the country. They can also download the hope in hand app.

Hope in hand app. Which you do right from your smartphone.

Rahbin Shyne: All right, I'm going to download it. Just check it out and see what's there. That sounds awesome.

You've been around presidents.

You clearly have a deep understanding of history. Very deep. But what is a pivotal historical event from your lived experiences that has left the most profound impact on you and has shaped your perspective.

An event that you experienced that happened during your lifetime.

John Hope Bryant: I mean, that's too much. I've been doing this for 30, 32 years.

Rahbin Shyne: I mean, yeah, and it doesn't have to be the best. Whatever comes to mind.

John Hope Bryant: I mean, my relationship with Ambassador Andrew Young and moving to Atlanta changed my life. If I had stayed in LA, I think I just would be a okay guy who does some stuff in LA and runs a small nonprofit, runs a, as a few pieces to real estate.

I think me moving from LA, which I loved, grew up there, and moving to Atlanta,

a place where it's like the moral capital of America.

It's like the Ozzie and Harryville for black people.

It's the 10th largest economy in the country that's built by all of us.

And getting that relationship with Ambassador Andrew Young, who was on that balcony when Doctor King was assassinated,

and having him adopt me is like a surrogate son.

Priceless.

Rahbin Shyne: How did that happen?

John Hope Bryant: I tracked him down. I hunted him for ten years.

I'd find out wherever he was in the country, buy a plane ticket and a ticket to wherever he was speaking, and I just show up. And I just wore him down.

And he wore me down because he actually ignored me. Even I'd show up, even ignore me. Pretty much it always be nice.

And I sort of gave up one day, and that's the day when it clicked.

The day I gave up was the day it clicked.

Rahbin Shyne: And when you say clicked, what happened?

John Hope Bryant: I mean, he finally paid attention to me that day. And when I started pushing, he started pulling. And we had lunch because of his son. Actually, Bo young asked me to go to lunch with his dad, and I was once again telling my story.

I thought he ignored me again, and he said he had to go do a media interview. Lunch was over. I was like, okay, I'm done. I've tried. I've been trying for years.

And he said, as he was walking around the table, he said, what are you doing after lunch?

I lied and said nothing.

I had a full schedule. And he said, well, come by my office and you can finish having lunch. And I did that. And we talked for 5 hours and just fell in love with each other, and it changed my life.

My life's never been the same since.

Rahbin Shyne: Okay. But I do. So I got that. The moment you stopped pushing, he pulled.

John Hope Bryant: Yep.

Rahbin Shyne: But looking back, would you say that that investment of ten years of haunting him, in your words, that that was an important ingredient in getting to that place?

John Hope Bryant: Yeah. Only in the dictionary does the words obsess come before the word work, so you gotta put in the word. Absolutely. The dictionary is alphabetical.

Rahbin Shyne: Thank you. I'm so glad I asked and that you shared that honestly.

That is truly the first time I have heard a story of such intense persistence over time. Like, ten years is a long time.

Anyway, congrats on that. Where'd you get that?

What was it about him that made you go? Because you've mentioned he was one of Martin Luther King's lieutenants. And I know he was mayor of Atlanta, and he's been an ambassador, but there are so many black men.

And I know there's not like, you know, droves, but I'm saying it could have been someone else. What was it about? Andrew Young.

John Hope Bryant: At the time that I began to pursue him,

and this was in the late nineties,

mid to late nineties,

there were only two black men who were international in the world. It was Quincy Jones and Andrew Young.

And I wanted to be an international business leader,

and I wouldn't pursue both of them.

And today, Quincy Jones is like a brother, and invest young is my mentor.

I pursued both of them. Stories are not dissimilar, but Andrew Young took much longer. Much longer. But you think about all the three stories I told you, whether it was Michael Arrigh and Tony Lewester, or whether it was Bill Rogers, or whether it's this Andrew Young or the story I didn't tell you about Wells Fargo.

I put in the work on all these things on the front end, and it didn't. Didn't look like it was paying dividends, but these folks were checking me out. Look, if you're the top of a mountain and folks are trying to get to you on top of a mountain,

you have an observation point that other people don't have. They're trying to get. They're coming up one side. They're just looking at their little world. You're the talent mountain. You're looking down, you're looking at all sides, and you're looking at people striving, trying get to you or trying to try to knock you off your plot or whatever.

And so you have time to observe. And so people who are very successful do a lot of observation.

Are you a threat? Are you an asset? Are you a liability? Are you a hindrance? Are you a help? And by the time you finally get to them, they made up their mind.

And that's what I love that.

Rahbin Shyne: I love that you're sharing that perspective that they have of time and metaphor of the mountain, because I feel very confident saying that the vast majority of people, when we have someone that we're going after as a mentor, as whatever, we're so in it.

From our view, like you said, that small view of I just want to get to the top and we failed to appreciate from their perspective how many people are coming at them.

I mean, we may say we know intellectually, but I just think that that metaphor and putting it in those terms is probably going to be helpful for somebody listening who's trying to get a mentorship or just get connected to someone.

You mentioned that when andrew young finally said yes, you spent 5 hours with him. And one of my questions is, who's a black man that you would spend 5 hours with?

So in your case, it has to be obviously someone you haven't met. So someone that you haven't interacted with who is a black man that you would love to spend 5 hours with from any year living or no longer alive.

John Hope Bryant: Broderick douglass.

Yeah, frederick douglass would be somebody I'd love to spend 5 hours with. I've had a chance to actually meet my heroes, many of them. I met nelson Mandela. I didn't spend 5 hours with him, but I met him, got a chance to talk to him a little bit, and I'm sure I would have enjoyed that.

But I'm not greedy. I think I've had more than my share of leaders and luminaries that I've had a chance to just to spend time with. I have a deep, dear friendship with Bishop, TD Jakes, and for all of my life, he was just iconic figure that larger than life.

And I can tell you he is the real deal. He is a person that you think he is.

But I've also got a chance to meet the human side of him that he has feelings, his feelings hurt his feelings. He's the real person.

He is a giant, he is all of that. But he also somebody, people are pulling from him all the time and seeing him as a transaction. And I love giving to him.

I love being able to give to Ambrasser Young, give to him. I love to, you know, CT Vivian got rest of his soul.

I would like to. I was an asset to him. Another presidential level of 40 who lived here in Atlanta.

It's not what they can do for me at this point. It's what I can do for them to make their life,

give them some grace to show them that they haven't lived their life in vain. You know, we appreciate them.

Rahbin Shyne: There's a power in acknowledgement. And what I hear is that you are able to be that for them, both in service and real guidance or counsel or whatever, but also in your way of being with them, at acknowledgement of who they are and what is a moment or event that either signifies or highlights your experience as a black man in the United States.

John Hope Bryant: I'm a little stunned at how much we have to do and how little everybody else has to do.

You know, my resume, my credentials allow me to get into most places. My resume and credentials, plus my,

me being a public figure, if you wanna call that, or some people, whatever you wanna call that figure, being recognized. It was a bit of a cheat sheet to be able to get into rooms and make phone calls.

People answer your phone, answer the phone when they see you calling.

But I'm stunned still to this day how underwhelming the resume or credentials are from the people who are mainstream and that they're going through the same door. They put forth 10% of the energy that I have to put forward.

I don't. I'm not angry about it. I'm not upset about it. It's just the way the world is, you know, haters make you better,

make you stronger, and this is not a level playing field. It's not a. This is not a work hard, do the right things, and it's going to pay off for you.

No, work hard, do the right things, and be hard as hell unfair.

But that's okay. Over around it. Do it. You're gonna get into it. Because at the very least,

all that just made you strong. Just made you stronger. I mean, I take no for vitamins. I mean, not much dissuades me. I don't expect things to go well.

I just don't expect them. I have to fight for everything when something happens, when something happens easily. For me, I'm surprised.

That's what continues to stun me, is I'd like to tell somebody that they could be me.

I'm not sure I could be me if I had to do it all over again is a real true answer. I got lucky. I was right, placed right time. I sacrificed a lot, sacrificed family, kids, all that stuff.

I have no regrets.

But I'm just not sure that other people could do exactly the same thing I did.

I think they could do something parallel to it. I think it.

And maybe because we kicked open doors,

they can walk through it easier. Like you talking about the financial literacy stuff, that it's here, there. Well, we made that easier conversation with people to have easier with nonprofits.

They don't even know us. To get a grant from some bank or from some corporation because Operation Hope didn't screw up the grants we got 38 years ago.

I'm stunned that we're the last hired and first fired. Wherever we don't have the relationship capital,

we don't recognize the power. Relationship capital. I'm gonna do a whole podcast on why we can't stay home and work from home. We gotta go to the office so people see it.

So I'm always hustling like, I always gotta. I gotta show up. I gotta, I gotta get on that plane and show up. I can't just put this on remote control.

Maybe my mainstream counterparts can just put it on remote control. I can.

Rahbin Shyne: Yeah. So two last questions. I gotta get my signature question in. If the United States was a woman, what would you say to her?

John Hope Bryant: Thank you. But I've already said thank you to her. I wrote a piece in Time magazine this week called how women change the world. So you can, you know, I literally wrote that piece three days ago.

I wrote the piece because somebody was calling the vice president a de candidate and upset me. But it's not about her. It's a larger piece about the contributions of women.

I would just say thank you. Without women, there'd be much fewer men.

Women are 25% of all in this country. Gross domestic product,

$6 billion plus women. Without women, America would be a third tier country.

Just don't get the credit they deserve.

Rahbin Shyne: Yeah, no say on that, but yeah. What excites you about the future of the United States?

John Hope Bryant: Potential is the answer.

We have enormous potential.

The only people that hurt us is us. I mean, everybody wants to be an american, but american. And so Russia and China and North Korea and Iran want our place in the world, and they've done things that have triggered us to create an internal food fight,

and we took the bait. And so now we gotta.

We gotta settle down or calm down and realize that we're being manipulated and we need to figure out, I guess we end where we started. We gotta figure out whether we're better together.

I think we are.

But, you know, God has a sense of humor. Literally. This country cannot continue to succeed without minorities, women, and folks who are coming from the bottom to the top. Mathematically and demographically,

the country cannot be the superpower in the world for 20 or 30 more years. It cannot be the biggest economy in the world unless we teach financial literacy to everybody, give them access to capital x, to opportunity, corporate jobs like my wealthy friends, my poor friends, do better, if only to stay wealthy.

My rich white friends are trying to retire en masse, and they've earned the right. Well, the people coming on the field from the G League,

in the NBA vernacular, the G League is coming up. The NBA players in waiting. Half of them look like black and brown people. I'm sure they are black and brown people, but they aren't being trained on how to build wealth and own things that create opportunity at scale.

And that's never happened. That's the business plan for America, that people can download and read that I wrote. It's never been mathematically correct,

ever, that you cannot succeed in America without all of God's children. It's never been the case, but it is now.

Rahbin Shyne: You pointed to two important things. One, the manipulation that we are not present to. We're not talking about it in the media, which I'm not sure why that doesn't come out more.

And then secondly, I love the way you languaged that, yeah, the future requires embracing people of color and women being contributors to the economy in a powerful way if the country is to continue.

And it's just the math. It is simply the math.

John, what did you get out of having this conversation today?

John Hope Bryant: You're a very smart person. I mean, I like smart people. And as a result of you doing this, your folks, you know, more thoughtful, well rounded discussion, and you pulled stuff out of me that most people don't.

So that's been very good. I'm just wiped out. I've been talking all damn day and all week,

and I'm tired of hearing myself. I just need to, like, go sit down and not say anything for 5 hours. But even though I'm exhausted, it's been a very rich and thought provoking conversation.

But that was because you're a good. You're a good interviewer.

Rahbin Shyne: Thank you so much, John. First, just for being who you are in the world and for the stand that you are, the energy that you are, the presence that you are, and the commitment that you are, most importantly, is truly transforming lives like hands down.

So I just want to say thank you for your commitment to all of us here in the United States being successful.

John Hope Bryant: Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. And encourage you to buy that book and give it to somebody else. Give it to a library.

Rahbin Shyne: Look, I saw the link to donate one, so I'm going to donate one to my library right when we get off the phone.

Thank you. Thank you for listening to 365 brothers the podcast. I'm your host, Robin Shine, and thank you so much for listening. Don't forget if you haven't followed us, make sure you do.

Follow us at 365 brothers on Instagram. You can also find us on Facebook. Check out our website, 365 brothers.com. and remember, to listen is to love.