Latest / Nightmare Success In and Out / Country Boy from Thayer sells Bank for $400 million- ends up in prison- Shaun Hayes
Transcript
- 0:01What happens when he works here? Becomes your reality.
- 0:04Hi. I'm Brian Cassidy.
- 0:05Welcome to the nightmare. Success in and out podcast,
- 0:08where we explore a, how to overcome your fears.
- 0:10And Nightmares is set yourself free.
- 0:13We're going to be exploring this topic with guys that was in
- 0:15Leavenworth with and others who survived their own nightmare.
- 0:20These stories can be inspiring. Sometimes sad, there's some
- 0:24humor but hopefully you can come away with a nugget of something
- 0:27that will help you knock down some of the prisons.
- 0:29You Built up in your own mind. Folks were back.
- 0:36And I know that everybody likes a good story about a small town
- 0:41boy, that makes good and I've got him here today.
- 0:46So Sean Hayes was, he was small-town boy from Thayer
- 0:49Missouri and he had a goal and his goal was to be a
- 0:53millionaire. At the age of 29, he bought his
- 0:58first back, he was a CEO of a large bank at 32 ran, a public
- 1:03company at 35, sold the bank for a half a billion dollars at 44.
- 1:09And then something happened because his goal was to be a
- 1:14millionaire and now here he was. What was he going to do?
- 1:17He lost Direction, he got a five-year prison sentence for
- 1:21bank fraud. Now he's making his comeback
- 1:24he's got a new book that's coming out, it's called the
- 1:26great choice. He was nice enough to let me
- 1:30read that this weekend's a great book.
- 1:32It's coming out February 7th so I'm not sure I'll ask him about
- 1:36if you can pre-order. Do those type of things.
- 1:38But he's doing some professional speaking and man he's got a
- 1:41wealth of knowledge of all the different things that he's been
- 1:43through his journey. And on top of that, he spent
- 1:46some time with my old man at Marion prison and will probably
- 1:49get into that. We're going to unpack all this.
- 1:51Can't wait to get into it. Welcome, Sean Hayes.
- 2:02And when you talk about your worst fears and I wrote to
- 2:06dedications in the book, in the one we didn't choose was the
- 2:10same seldom in life, do you reach your greatest dreams?
- 2:14Or do you realize your worst fears?
- 2:16Mmm? But I can honestly say I've done
- 2:18both. So I'm both lived it both ways
- 2:21and I'm touched to be here. So, thank you.
- 2:22Well, I've been very I really looking forward to this
- 2:28interview because you know, there's so many stories that you
- 2:31Are in your book. Sean that are life lessons and,
- 2:36you know, can you tell you, walk us back a little bit that boy
- 2:41growing up in there. Give us a little bit of flavor
- 2:44of what that was like. Well, you know, it's interesting
- 2:49because it was a, I call it an SMS, a of about 3,000 because
- 2:52the Arkansas state line was literally across the street.
- 2:55But, you know, my parents always give you the feeling you could
- 2:58do anything, it was nothing in life.
- 3:00You can do if you put your mind. Into it.
- 3:02And so in a small town, there was nothing to do in those days
- 3:05but play sports. Yeah.
- 3:07And so when I, you know, I look back in life, I had just some
- 3:09wonderful mentors that were teachers and coaches and no one
- 3:13ever told you you couldn't now we weren't that good but you
- 3:17know we had fun in those those early successes in the fact that
- 3:21you knew everyone you couldn't go anywhere in a town like that,
- 3:24how big was it? How big welfare was 2002.
- 3:27It was Spring, Arkansas was about a thousand that's why I
- 3:29called the SMS a but It was just, it was a great place to
- 3:33grow up in a great time and I graduate high school in 78.
- 3:37So the late 60s and into the 70s and it was kind of The Wonder
- 3:41Years. Yeah.
- 3:42It was, it was, it was a little bit of Mayberry and but they're,
- 3:45you know, we always talk about there was any public destruction
- 3:48of property or anything because you knew everybody.
- 3:51And this is something that that most people don't realize
- 3:54because I live in st. Louis and now then I see deer
- 3:57carcasses on every Highway and a lot of them and a lot of
- 4:01numbers. From and where I was from, I
- 4:03told somebody few weeks, I said you would never see that and
- 4:04they said, why is it that was the red meat, mmm, because deer
- 4:07season and then anything that happened, and that's what people
- 4:10ate. Sure.
- 4:11And this gives you an idea. So that forth are they would let
- 4:15the school kids hunt the week of deer season.
- 4:17The first week, if no property was damaged and either three
- 4:21schools during Halloween and sent if you got it.
- 4:26But that's how small the town is Sophie paper enough.
- 4:29And just, you get to hunt next week, if you don't.
- 4:31Anything like that. But I have to tell you one more
- 4:34small town story that you can relate to.
- 4:36So I was a freshman at Mizzou and I met this beautiful Stevens
- 4:39girl from Wisconsin and I said, write me a letter and she was
- 4:43okay. What's right is I said you just
- 4:44right Shawn 6 5 7, 9 11 and I'll get it.
- 4:48And I did, is that crazy. Well, that's the benefit of
- 4:52being a small town. It is wonderful, place to grow
- 4:55up. So tell me that you're telling a
- 4:57little bit about your parents and siblings and what, how is
- 5:00that world? Well, it, I had crazy parents.
- 5:03Yeah, they were depression children.
- 5:05My father's family lost everything, and my mother's
- 5:08family didn't know. There was a depression.
- 5:11And literally they didn't and, you know, just one of those
- 5:13things where yeah, and they were, they were like that.
- 5:16And had interesting War years and my dad had a lot of
- 5:19siblings. My mom had none.
- 5:20So all these kind of things you get to grow up with with aunts
- 5:23and uncles, and was no one. But after the war, they moved,
- 5:27basically, from New York City to Fair Missouri.
- 5:31Wow. That mainly, because they grown
- 5:33up of about 100 miles away in two different small towns and
- 5:36because of my grandfather's Lumber business, it was a rails
- 5:40town and so it was logical to go that sense.
- 5:43They had, I have an older sister, he's 13 years older, and
- 5:47so everybody in my family had gone to college and where I went
- 5:52to high school and well actually backed on.
- 5:54Let's go and I didn't know, you didn't go to college because
- 5:57that was just what you knew, right?
- 5:58And you knowing spring feel very well My dad, and my sister want
- 6:03to dream and my mom went to what's now.
- 6:05I guess Missouri State in those days, she called SMS Teachers
- 6:08College in her day, right? Right.
- 6:09But they were very entrepreneurial, they had a
- 6:12furniture store or hardware store a motel, a restaurant.
- 6:16Do you think, do you think that Sean, I was reading that your
- 6:19book and the different things that they had, you know, between
- 6:24the motel and the restaurant that did you see that?
- 6:28And think, oh, okay. That's what I need to do is
- 6:31figure out. How to go after a business run a
- 6:34business because you were brought up not knowing any
- 6:36different. I wouldn't think I mean your mom
- 6:38and dad just did that right. Actually there's a there's about
- 6:41a 30 year olds study that was paid for by the Kauffman
- 6:44Foundation that looked at entrepreneurs and they were
- 6:47trying to find what the telling thing, the common link and
- 6:50you'll get this because it fits you as well.
- 6:54The 1993 or for 70% of all entrepreneurs.
- 6:58Fathers did not get what they quoted as a regular paycheck.
- 7:02Hmm, you know. And that was like, and I
- 7:04believe, now it's father our mother, their much sure, much
- 7:07different world, 30 years later. Yeah.
- 7:09And that's why my parents were interesting.
- 7:11I went to Mizzou to undergraduate, you're going to
- 7:13laughing. I didn't know how to cash a
- 7:15check, right? I went to the bookstore and they
- 7:18did and they said I said, only thinks they told me I had to do.
- 7:21So I called the bank because My checks had no account number and
- 7:25I couldn't fill out the form. So I called the bank and they
- 7:28said, Sean, just make up some numbers, okay?
- 7:30And that's what I did was I wrote down to, you know, who
- 7:32really made us and numbers on the bottom of your check will
- 7:34not. And I did that.
- 7:35And I went over and they said, well cash, your check and that's
- 7:38what a small towns like, you know, very, very different.
- 7:41But they, they had are interesting characters of they.
- 7:45They hated Banks. And so, I was actually a very
- 7:47big disappointment for not. I bet that was, I did go to law
- 7:50school. So hey, thanks.
- 7:52And then here you are. Yeah.
- 7:53My dad said in those days of boatman's, bank was the first
- 7:56national West Plains which became a center Bank of America.
- 8:00They had so much faith in him. We need to borrow fifty two
- 8:02thousand dollars in 1950 that they kept to in the boatman's
- 8:05National Bank of st. Louis let him the other 50 and
- 8:09the other thing they did not like was the IRS.
- 8:11Yeah. And I mentioned that the book
- 8:12but we literally had three safe full of cash.
- 8:15Other reason why never catch a checklist when you.
- 8:17Yeah, you said my mom have a few thousand dollars in her shoes
- 8:20and her closet. Forget that he's my dad always
- 8:23had. A few thousand his pocket.
- 8:25And so you needed money. I need some money and then I was
- 8:27very industrious and I always had some kind of today.
- 8:31The term is side hustle. Yeah.
- 8:33And I in my day it was just, you just hustled, he want to make
- 8:35money, I think he's so cuz you've got some stories in your
- 8:39book and I thought one of them that was and I think you kind of
- 8:41stayed in the the business a little bit after that.
- 8:43But can you tell your fireworks store?
- 8:46Well, it was a summer of Haiti and I'd made a lot of money that
- 8:49year before and he bailing business but that was a year
- 8:52that diesel fuel. Through the roof, baling twine.
- 8:55And there was going to be money made.
- 8:56So I had been working at a will call it a mall that would be a
- 9:00generous saying it was Plains of my, my cousin's wife's gift shop
- 9:04which I wouldn't get paid number one, and number two, I was about
- 9:07bored stiff because a gift shop in a town of 5,000, undo a lot.
- 9:11And my dad said, are you going to get a real job?
- 9:13And so I thought for about an hour and a half or two and I
- 9:16said, wait a minute mr. Dahl runs the, we have volunteer
- 9:20fire department. He runs a huge fireworks.
- 9:23Andthey're. People would come for 30, 40
- 9:25miles away, Brent to the fireworks, the fireworks after
- 9:28the baseball game and since always played baseball, I saw
- 9:31that. And for you all that don't
- 9:34realize you had to go 80 miles to there's McDonald's.
- 9:37You had to go, we had a theater of one theater.
- 9:39Most people had to go 25 or more miles to the theater.
- 9:42Just give you a perspective. So I call my shirt off and I
- 9:44told him, I wasn't course he knew and I said, what are you
- 9:47get the fireworks and he said Arnold fireworks.
- 9:49Well, in those days you had information.
- 9:50So I down one 150, 155. Five.
- 9:53One, two, one, two, I need the number for Arnold fireworks.
- 9:56Got it turned round dial it again, and it will lady answer
- 9:59the phone. I said he would like to meet the
- 10:01owner and she goes, well, I am the owner, my husband died, a
- 10:04few years ago and I said, well, this is my name and I'm in,
- 10:07ther, Missouri, and I want to buy some fireworks.
- 10:10And she was what you did. I said, well, there's a problem.
- 10:11I'll be money continued consign them to meet you.
- 10:13I love this. What do you get the better?
- 10:16So she says, of course I can sign and he and I said and she
- 10:18wasn't by the way, if you mail me a registered letter by the
- 10:23six. Of July with full payment, I'll
- 10:25give you an extra 2% off. That's of course I did that
- 10:27course. We had one problem.
- 10:29Brandon, it was after June 15th was like June 16th.
- 10:33You have to have your order in to where we can ship them to you
- 10:36before. June 15th, you have to come and
- 10:37get him. Well, we had a lot of trucks.
- 10:39I said no problem by the way. This is a mantra for us.
- 10:43Entrepreneurs, in life, I get in the truck and I drive to Little
- 10:46Rock and I load them up and it rained all the way back.
- 10:51And it's I would stop under underpass overpasses and Just
- 10:53anything in the world, well, because they were wet.
- 10:56I've laid them out to where they, you know, the boxes would
- 10:58dry up. Yeah.
- 11:00And I didn't, I didn't really know what to do and I couldn't
- 11:03afford to shoot any, right? I knew what firecracker.
- 11:06I mean, there are certain things a bottle rockets.
- 11:08I knew what the sure, but you're not looking to get fireworks
- 11:12wet. That would be one of the things
- 11:13that you wouldn't want. One thing you don't want to do.
- 11:15Well, my dad helped me build a stand.
- 11:17We had the first access off limit access Highway, we owned
- 11:20the building, but not the bar in it.
- 11:22So in this bar, Parking lot. I had a fireworks stand, but it
- 11:25was the first you couldn't sell fireworks in the city limits.
- 11:28Now in the Arkansas side, there were fireworks stands because
- 11:30that was different but still, they weren't a ceiling Thayer.
- 11:33So then I went to the neighbors and they let me put for I hand
- 11:36painted four by eight sheets of plywood, discount fireworks
- 11:39ahead. Put them on the side of the
- 11:41highway and then this is another thing.
- 11:43I don't think you're old enough to remember one of these Morant
- 11:45a mimeograph machine. Oh wow.
- 11:48My best friend's mother was a secretary at the school.
- 11:51Yeah. So I made up discount Rockets 99
- 11:54Cents. And then I went to every
- 11:56Saturday at Saturday, I went to every Supermarket for miles and
- 11:59stuff them on the windshield and all of a sudden I'm in the
- 12:02fireworks business, but the story I know you're looking
- 12:05forward to because I you I was an all-conference lineman.
- 12:09So I used to be a big kid and the guy that ran the grocery
- 12:12store newest. Well, because the things that
- 12:14you couldn't buy from the purveyors, it's in a truck in
- 12:17once a week, you went to the grocery store.
- 12:19We went frequently. He stopped by and he had a farm,
- 12:22probably a couple Miles north of my fireworks stand, and he
- 12:25pulled in his truck on evening. He said, I need to buy a
- 12:27fireworks. Well, he wanted this number
- 12:31three shell. Well rant, I had no clue what a
- 12:34numbers here to show us how is selling fireworks, and only had
- 12:36like five of them. So I sure wouldn't get a test
- 12:38one and it might be wet on top of that.
- 12:40Exactly. So he bought these things.
- 12:43Well, a couple days later, he came back was still before the
- 12:45Fourth of July and he said Shawn, I would whip your butt if
- 12:49you weren't so big and I said, well, what's wrong sir?
- 12:52He goes well, Night, we had the family over the kids, we had a
- 12:55great time shooting fireworks and I save that number three
- 12:58shell for the end and he goes, you know, I served in military
- 13:01goes, that's a mortar round. And well, these cattle, I can
- 13:05get through the fence, you know, because cows will run through
- 13:08anything Cheryl that don't live in them.
- 13:09And then pretending they all follow each other.
- 13:11So they were chasing cattle till about 2:00 in the morning.
- 13:14But it was a great thing because my fraternity brothers would get
- 13:18a job and those days minimum wage was 220.
- 13:20Mmm! And I got it down to where those
- 13:24Summers and then after I got out of college actually took my
- 13:27vacation, I can make twenty thousand dollars have a great
- 13:30son Dan and read a ton of books because you're out there for
- 13:33three weeks. But the first 16 17 days, you're
- 13:37really just working on your suntan and that's a good plan
- 13:41right there. So, that was, that was my
- 13:43fireworks business. Well, and you stayed in it for a
- 13:45little while, didn't I? Did I have to when I got out of
- 13:47college, I went to work for you and be in Kansas City and my you
- 13:52got. I only got One week vacation so
- 13:54I call my cousin if I said hey I got this fireworks and he's
- 13:56about 10 years older and a far more entrepreneurial either than
- 13:59I am. And I said Johnny, if you'll
- 14:01open it up for two weeks, I'll come down the week of the fourth
- 14:03type of vacation. It's we did, we split 20 grand,
- 14:06we that's awesome piece. Yeah.
- 14:07It was just good money. That's a lot of money back and
- 14:10it's a lot of money, but there's a lot of money back in those
- 14:12days was. Well, that's what put me in the
- 14:13loan. Sharking business.
- 14:14Well, let's talk about that. So, I mean Universe, Missouri is
- 14:17a big school and I and any time you go the college.
- 14:21There is that guy. And you were that guy, how did
- 14:25this happen? Well and by the way, I didn't,
- 14:27you know, and this goes back to really a lot of my life.
- 14:30I've lived in the gray, I didn't know, part of what I was doing
- 14:32was illegal. I first started out as I had a
- 14:36lot of wealthy fraternity, Brothers, mainly journalism
- 14:38students from all over the country.
- 14:39Hmm, it will come to Mizzou and they would come in.
- 14:42And in those days you took dates to football games, and you wore
- 14:45suits and all kinds of it was a whole different culture.
- 14:48And they come by on Friday and say, hey Sean, I need 200 bucks
- 14:51a week and I got a date tonight. I got this You can and I don't
- 14:54have any money and I'd say no problem and I'd write him a
- 14:57check for $200 and they'd write me a check for 220.
- 15:01Brandt, there it is. I don't know.
- 15:03This is where it got really fun. You can't do this anymore and I
- 15:06didn't know what I was doing was illegal actually taught a couple
- 15:08years later when I moved up in the business school but I would
- 15:12run to the post office at night and put it in the mail, didn't
- 15:14go out to like 10:00 and I'd mail it to our bank which was in
- 15:17Mammoth Spring Arkansas across the state line.
- 15:19Well it would get the Thayer like on Tuesday.
- 15:22They Is it with that kid would stuff in his pocket.
- 15:25He go to East, Jake guy, IGA cash a check for a hundred and
- 15:29get his cash. And then on Monday or Tuesday
- 15:31he'd show up at the local bank and put my check-in.
- 15:34Well I'd he's checking cleared my bank, his parents money would
- 15:37come in and I was running you know like a twenty thirty
- 15:41thousand dollar kite-making you know, four five six hundred
- 15:45dollars a week, you know, and then I got Industrials.
- 15:49We had there was a bookie out of st.
- 15:51Charles that. That's nephew.
- 15:53Our fraternity. And so we had a lot of
- 15:56Statistics in those days of business.
- 15:57Going, our guys thought they were really smart, he had one
- 16:00problem with her Theory, they thought it was random.
- 16:03The problem was they weren't flipping a coin and actually in
- 16:06prison, I prove this to, your father will come back to that
- 16:09and they were picking the team's.
- 16:11Well once you pick the team's, it's not random sure sir.
- 16:15So, in the weekly pool in Marion, your dad would pick the
- 16:17teams and I'd take a coin and we put head sales and I would beat
- 16:20him every week on the flip, on the flip, because the flip wins.
- 16:23And well, these guys would bet $100 on the noon 1:00 college
- 16:27game. If they lost a bet 200 and those
- 16:29days, you had to play a peck eight game in the uni via
- 16:32because you couldn't information didn't flow if you lost a bet,
- 16:35200 on a, on a noon, Sunday game, if they lost game one day,
- 16:40100 now, they could Betty, she'll catch the afternoon,
- 16:42they'll tell you. And if they lost a bet 800 and
- 16:45then if they lost that, they needed money because the book he
- 16:47came to town on Tuesday. Sure.
- 16:48So I would, I'd float him a check and that went really well
- 16:53and I I was making a ton of money until--.
- 16:57Hi, I had a fraternity brother from Kabul.
- 16:59It was in to the bookie for about 4,500 which mean he owed
- 17:02me 50 and it was actually Thanksgiving break and so I kept
- 17:08calling because I had to cover that check and I had by this
- 17:11time I had gone to the DU and he'd given me cash.
- 17:15I had my own cash, I had a KD, she gave me cash, I kind of
- 17:17built a little bank and I couldn't afford to lose forty
- 17:21five hundred dollars because I would have to allocate tonight.
- 17:22Yeah and so what happened was He said we'll meet me in Willow
- 17:28Springs and we met at this truck.
- 17:29Stop. And it was his dad, his brothers
- 17:32and they were going to, they were going to, they going to
- 17:33whip on me and I had a girl with me and I said, okay guys, you
- 17:36can, you can whip me, but here's what I want to tell you.
- 17:38Do you know what your son's doing?
- 17:40And I'm more willing to forego the 500, yields me?
- 17:43But those guys from st. Charles are not, they will come
- 17:45to Kabul. Yes, exactly.
- 17:46And, and they will hurt your son and so, they paid him.
- 17:49And that was the end of my book, making lending business.
- 17:53That was another was enough. Yeah, I was back to just In the,
- 17:57you know, the guy who needed date money.
- 17:58That was much safer. But, but I have to tell you
- 18:00this, the only reason why I had student loans was, I borrowed
- 18:04money to tell you that to do that?
- 18:06Yeah. I stopped on the way home at
- 18:09Christmas and got a fifteen hundred dollar student loan.
- 18:11A great Southern's in Springfield.
- 18:12Yeah. And then I put that and I partly
- 18:14when I got to college, I paid it off.
- 18:15You just parlayed your student loan, I loved it, I loved it.
- 18:18I mean you know the thing about your book and I think it's
- 18:21that's why it's such a great title, the gray, the great
- 18:25choice, Because, you know, people who you're a very smart
- 18:31man. And I grew up with a very smart
- 18:33man. And it almost encourages you
- 18:37because when you are in that world of thinking and figuring
- 18:42out and pushing curiosity, all those things.
- 18:45If you're really smart, it pushes you into the gray area
- 18:48because it doesn't feel black and white you're looking for
- 18:51solutions to something that can you know what, they could
- 18:53actually work that way, if I could just did this, or did
- 18:55that? So it's that's why your books
- 18:57and interesting read because you can see at different points in
- 19:03your life, Sean that it's an inspiring story because you you
- 19:09are constantly doing what you need to do.
- 19:12A lot of other people aren't doing but then when you get to
- 19:14that point you're not completely satisfied.
- 19:16And that's that's that inner competitiveness or that that
- 19:21drive that I think towards the end of your career of what you
- 19:25were. In the banking business, you've
- 19:27had kind of lost that because you had driven all the way to
- 19:29the top of the mountain and done, all those things.
- 19:33That was the thing that was your inner Fuel and then you had to
- 19:37figure out how to find that fuel again.
- 19:40But let's talk a little bit about how you got into the
- 19:44banking world because like you said, your parents weren't
- 19:46pushing you into that. No, not at all end up.
- 19:49So it's the fall of my senior year and I took the LSAT and I
- 19:53had a professor Walter Johnson who was in here.
- 19:56Might even Walter Johnson was there.
- 19:57Yeah. A very, very, very famous man,
- 19:59on that. Yes.
- 20:00And he said, Sean, you should know what you think, and I said,
- 20:03dr. John Tyson my parents really not
- 20:06that. I listen to them that much in a
- 20:07lot of ways. But that's one thing, they would
- 20:08not really approve up. And he said, Sean, the world is
- 20:11changing, and there's a book called the bankers.
- 20:14It actually references, Mark, Twain Bank out of st.
- 20:16Louis in those days, and he had me read that.
- 20:18And I said, I, he said, because it's becoming a sales culture.
- 20:21It's a different world and now it's even different again.
- 20:23There's different again, right? It's no fun again.
- 20:27I had three priority interviews, IBM Merrill Lynch and um, be and
- 20:34so um, be before the Nevada? Missouri Bank?
- 20:36Yeah, before the Nebraska game they were number two or
- 20:40something. We were like number 17 and we
- 20:42lost 726 on George horror. Short hose dropping the ball in
- 20:46the end zone. That was the bad news.
- 20:47The good news was the day before the president.
- 20:50A young guy. Not unlike myself and your dad.
- 20:53A young guy from Southeast. Missouri was president at a very
- 20:55young age. Age like thirty seven or eight
- 20:57had grown up in a small town played basketball at Mizzou and
- 21:01he interviewed me and so well few days later I got a call and
- 21:07they said, would you come to Kansas City on this Friday will
- 21:09be the Friday before we went to lay The Jayhawks.
- 21:12So I want to wow, that's girl, why we went there?
- 21:15I had an interview, you know, had a weekend in Kansas City and
- 21:18what I wanted for the interview and the one of my teaching
- 21:22assistants from corpfin, Finance 2003 was there?
- 21:26And so, when I got inside, they said, you have any questions?
- 21:28Why head to the first question was, you know, trying to be, you
- 21:31know, on the walls, sure, what's your best marketing?
- 21:34You know, I mean, there's a table with everybody, but the
- 21:36chairman of the board there are six or eight men, looking at you
- 21:40and big interview, right? And I'm thinking, and I'm
- 21:42thinking it's, you know, they're going to hit me sir.
- 21:44With some question, it was going to go being good, conservative,
- 21:47Bankers, that when do you go? Well, and a few years later, I
- 21:51found out after digressing, tell you few hours later, they would
- 21:54ask girls who would come in, Do you drive because their wives
- 21:58didn't drive? You have to do generational
- 22:00things going today, you get sued for that.
- 22:01Sure you would. But in those days they tell you,
- 22:03hey Jared have a Heyday with that.
- 22:05Yes, they went, but I asked this question to us twice on one of
- 22:07my teaching assistants out there, who's a several years
- 22:10older getting his. And I said, do I need an MBA to
- 22:12get this job? And they said, no, and I've
- 22:14quoted this in meaning interviews with young people.
- 22:17We look for me, we look for two things maturity, and you've
- 22:20shown that in people who've been successful in team sports.
- 22:23Hmm, because if you've been successful team sports, you can
- 22:25make The whole Enterprise Leasing theory.
- 22:28Yes. Yeah.
- 22:29And so that's how I ended up in making but I will tell you one
- 22:32more than I want. The well I moved us to Kansas
- 22:35City on the weekend of Labor Day Memorial Day and the first of
- 22:39June was a Tuesday. So that someday I drove downtown
- 22:42at this big old Bank building and it said open like nine to
- 22:45three or four or something. So the next day I got up and I
- 22:48showed up at about eight fifty five and walked in and walked
- 22:51through this door and went up to the 94th.
- 22:53Our first, I met the director of HR and about Six and a half
- 22:56seconds because I was late. I didn't realize that that door
- 23:00time was for the customers. I was supposed to be there
- 23:03before I but that's how I started out brand.
- 23:05That was the first day the first day.
- 23:08So you you kind of learned and had some mentors in that world
- 23:13and you, I forget what, how long you were there before you took
- 23:17the opportunity to move to st. Louis, can you kind of walk us
- 23:20through how that progressed? Yeah, I I started in June of 82
- 23:24and I came to st. Louis in February of 84 And I
- 23:26figured out probably within a year, we were the biggest bank
- 23:29in Kansas City and we were nothing and st.
- 23:32Louis. Yeah.
- 23:32And all the fancy stuff in Kansas.
- 23:34Yeah, we had. I mean they had art, we had
- 23:36every Thomas Hart Benton and every George Caleb Bingham.
- 23:39You can imagine just beautiful. I think it was a particle.
- 23:41The wolf and a beautiful dining room.
- 23:43Beautiful. If you realize this because
- 23:46people tease me about being conscious but you gotta
- 23:49remember, I'm single. Yeah, you got soup salad, main
- 23:52course and dessert in your, in your iced tea.
- 23:55Which is might For two dollars and twenty cents that was it
- 23:58that was it, but I wasn't an officer.
- 23:59And so after about 13 or 14 months, I'm looking around, I'm
- 24:02gone. And I went into the
- 24:03vice-chairman. I said, you know, Mister you
- 24:05all, I think I need to be an officer will, in a few days I
- 24:08was at loan Administration office or whatever.
- 24:10That was, I was the only one in the company but you are not a
- 24:12loser and I could go eat down there.
- 24:14And that was, I was looking for. How can I you you?
- 24:16If you know me, well in life, you know, I love food and I love
- 24:18to eat. I'm trying to figure out a way
- 24:20to do that, but I knew early on, I come to St.
- 24:22Louis. Because St.
- 24:23Louis growing up on the Arkansas line, literally.
- 24:26In the middle of the state, but you were st.
- 24:29Louis Cardinal, Fisher. And we went to st.
- 24:31Louis on my dad raced horses over there.
- 24:33So it wasn't a familiar to you at all.
- 24:35Not at all. And so the opportunity came up,
- 24:38they said you can go. You can stay in Kansas City.
- 24:40You can go to Springfield, are you can go to st.
- 24:43Louis. And I, of course, the day and
- 24:46went to Springfield met the guy, but that wasn't going to work.
- 24:48And I went to st. Louis, and they offered me a job
- 24:51and so I showed up a couple months later but st.
- 24:55Louis For you and me, it was the same thing for St.
- 24:57Louis banks in Kansas City, the other.
- 24:59But I'll never forget. Because this was a great thing
- 25:01about the company I was within a culture.
- 25:03Literally after 12 months, I sat in meetings with the chairman
- 25:07CEO I mean I watch people say how do you know about buying
- 25:09Banks? I said because when I was 22 and
- 25:1123 years old, I sit in rooms and we watch what they were doing
- 25:14it, right? And your job was to man the
- 25:15phone and to be the runner but you heard everything and you
- 25:19literally heard everything. Yeah.
- 25:21And so what an education it was a great education but I was in
- 25:25my last Eating and mr. Kemper looked at me and he said,
- 25:29and he had that gravel he's on. He goes, I hear you're going to
- 25:32st. Louis.
- 25:32And I said, yes, sir. And he goes well, you know, we
- 25:35got good news finally, and he looks down at Jerry Rice who had
- 25:37been at the bank. I trained at and then they moved
- 25:39him to the holding company and he said, Jerry, we made, we made
- 25:42what 24,000 last month in st. Louis, and Jerry looked at him
- 25:47and Jerry just had that look of an accountant of no Crosby.
- 25:50We made $24. And then, he gonna cross because
- 25:54he kicked the floorboard through his Bill one time.
- 25:56He I mean he pounded and scream. He was a wonderful guy but he
- 25:59had a temper and he just goes, well, why did we take one more
- 26:02person to lunch? We could have lost money for the
- 26:0410th year in a row because they had four Banks and this is
- 26:07before Branch Banking and the steel in the downtown st.
- 26:09Louis Bank, lost money every month, and I got there just in
- 26:13time for to get fun. So obviously was an opportunity
- 26:17because the easy, the easy Road and I think this is why I think
- 26:20your story's interesting, the easy Road would have been to
- 26:22stay in Kansas City, be around all the fancy stuff.
- 26:26Silk Stocking clientele and move up the ladder.
- 26:31Exactly. That would have been the thing.
- 26:32The easy sophisticated cushy way to do it, and you did just the
- 26:38opposite. You went to a place where they
- 26:40were not known. You had to make your way as the
- 26:44new guy, and you weren't the guy, that was from st.
- 26:47Louis, which is a big deal in St.
- 26:49Louis, you know where you went to high school?
- 26:51Everybody wants to ask that question.
- 26:52You were from ther and You come into this world?
- 26:57How does how does it work? Well in this is, this is what's
- 27:00interesting. You said, exactly the things
- 27:02that I face. But I was able to turn them the
- 27:04other way. I became the at 24 years old.
- 27:08They kept sending me out as the face of the bank and the 24th at
- 27:1224. Yeah.
- 27:13And I looked at just other than age and if you went to the
- 27:16parking lot and saw that 83k car out there you definitely knew
- 27:19that wasn't a banker but those popular the tiles case they were
- 27:24Lee Iacocca. So, They sent me to a vent at
- 27:28the Casa Loma Ballroom for young st.
- 27:30Louis singles. And I was down there and I don't
- 27:33Cherokee Street. Yeah, I don't care.
- 27:34He's a big deal. Yeah.
- 27:36Hands. And dancing.
- 27:37And it was, what's funny is, is it became the crowd of people
- 27:40that I competed with and got to know him?
- 27:42My kids went to school with eventually but I'm just, you
- 27:44know, to them a guy from Kansas City, but I'm a been in st.
- 27:47Louis 10 days. Mmm.
- 27:49But what was interesting was everybody's talking about what
- 27:52they were going to do for the third grade reunions, and where
- 27:55they went to high school. Cool.
- 27:56Well, I would say I want to Thayer high school and I always
- 27:58had a little fun with him. I would go they go.
- 28:01Well, what kind of glass was kind of private?
- 28:04You had to live in a special place and they're only 57
- 28:06people, my graduating class was there thinking 57 people, But
- 28:09the irony in that Brandon, you move to steal.
- 28:11Oh yeah. Is it?
- 28:12We had an advantage because they couldn't put us in a box.
- 28:15Yes. If I would have said I, you
- 28:17know, I went to Vianney. They go.
- 28:19He's from South County. Exactly.
- 28:21There was nowhere to put you. Right?
- 28:22Exactly. Our, he went to you.
- 28:24Hi, he's a really bright Catholic.
- 28:25He had The other thing, I think Shawn that you used it, you
- 28:29know, I always like I was it all wars and Country Club and I
- 28:32always made the joke that there there was I got in because I was
- 28:36the only person from Hickory Hills junior high.
- 28:38Well, that was funny because they, instead of being ashamed
- 28:43of it or not being able to fit it, it worked as something.
- 28:47And what you did is you worked it to your advantage which is
- 28:51smart. Well, you're in, you're exactly
- 28:52right. And that.
- 28:53So the other thing that helped coming to st.
- 28:55Louis was When you're in banking, you have something
- 28:57everybody wants money but I found my early success actually
- 29:02going to the Jewish Community because Landmark was somewhat
- 29:06considered the Jewish bank and Mark Twain, definitely was.
- 29:09But the other Banks were in. So I could have early successes
- 29:11and then we built on those successes and then people hear
- 29:14what you did this or you did that.
- 29:15And then in this was a thing about and it's and it's true in
- 29:18any large company, but they knew me in Kansas City.
- 29:21And one time, I got an eight million dollar loan approved in
- 29:24a day which was unheard of Sure. I mean Crosby Kemper signed a
- 29:29house loan for a thousand dollars.
- 29:32I one week as a management trainee presented 83 real estate
- 29:35loans to him, none of them were more than 50 thousand dollars.
- 29:39Well, I spent, you know, come and he would look at me and he a
- 29:42funny story and this is a Monette Story down your neck of
- 29:45the woods. I have three pictures and he
- 29:48says Sean. What are these three pictures
- 29:50for? And I said, well, mr.
- 29:51Kemper I said here's the deal. I said this is the streets
- 29:54showing its paved. And then there's really nice
- 29:57Ranch House. You know, say early 60s and I
- 30:00said, this is house next door and then Eileen to third picture
- 30:03down, and this is a house of Rio ten thousand dollars on.
- 30:06Well, he's what we lived, 2,000 dollars on this but, you know,
- 30:10that was, that was it. That was, that was it so to get
- 30:13an eight million dollar deal in a culture, like that was unheard
- 30:15of and Mark Twain, who lost us where they, because I ended up
- 30:18knowing the guy who's, how did you do that?
- 30:19I said, they trusted me. I was from Kansas City.
- 30:22Yeah, and had I not done that detour in Kansas City.
- 30:24I wouldn't of done with Sean. The thing I think I wanted to
- 30:27ask you because after seeing how you went up through the ranks
- 30:31with um, be coming over to st. Louis and then, as you start to
- 30:35become somebody with your own bank, did you it's because you
- 30:40became a different Banker than what um be was.
- 30:45And, you know, they were proud of their conservative roots and
- 30:49what but you went after the Contemporary way of growing a
- 30:54bank and Did those did you work off of that?
- 30:58As that I learned this and I'm going to grow differently or I
- 31:02learned this and I'm just going to create a whole different
- 31:05brand of a little piece of that. But all of this, I went to
- 31:10graduate school banking, the University of Delaware and my
- 31:12thesis was really plagiarizing. Mark Twain.
- 31:16It was actually a bank out of New Jersey called National
- 31:18Community Bank. Who did we did exactly what they
- 31:20did, okay, you followed that he duplicated and I love that
- 31:24because so many people People that get into trying to grow a
- 31:28company, they think that they have to reinvent the wheel and
- 31:31what I found growing a company was there was always something
- 31:34out there. If I looked hard enough that I
- 31:37could copy, and I could bring it back and implement it into our
- 31:40company and that is the secret to growing a company.
- 31:45Getting something that's already out there.
- 31:46Don't reinvent it, take it and then duplicate it exactly being
- 31:49a play. I was only, I would say this
- 31:51later Rob plant, probably, just because it was just one of those
- 31:54things where It just worked and yes, but the thing that made us
- 31:57special was we had all these business people around us who
- 32:01wanted to be involved in a bank but couldn't yeah, for lots of
- 32:04reasons, they weren't they weren't Blue Bloods.
- 32:06They weren't sharing with that, but they had so much knowledge
- 32:09about industry and they constantly ask me the question.
- 32:13Why do you all do this this way? And before it was over, a lot of
- 32:17times we change how we did things because they looked at,
- 32:20like, don't do things because that's what you've always done
- 32:22them. And that was a unique thing in
- 32:23banking and, you know, That we did was just and we turn a
- 32:27Kentucky, Fried Chicken's a Hardee's into the bank.
- 32:30Did we would we made more money at Westport Plaza, often ATM
- 32:33machine and out of the bank. I love it and I want it.
- 32:36If you could have done this legally, but you could do it
- 32:38technology wise, I would have had because what happened are so
- 32:41many bars out there knows days. Yeah, that you'd have people
- 32:43come at 5 and 5, I would have gone to have been a dollar
- 32:45between 8 a.m. and two dollars and then it 11 in like five
- 32:49dollars and it would entail anything but you could the
- 32:53technology rights, right? But no, it was It was a fun run.
- 32:56Do you think after after reading the history of where, how you
- 33:00stepped, you didn't get the position, you thought you should
- 33:06have gotten. Do you think that's what clicked
- 33:09and started the momentum of you thinking?
- 33:11I got to get out of here? Yeah, it was.
- 33:13And if we were in a place you can see now I normally then
- 33:17immediately take my head and bang it against the wall and I
- 33:19said, it took me seven years. Forgot.
- 33:20My last name wasn't Kemper. Yeah, and I actually predicted
- 33:24the CEOs after I Then they were on their own.
- 33:26Yeah. And but the point was when I
- 33:29didn't get what I thought I should have gotten quite
- 33:31honestly, Brent, I shouldn't have gotten it.
- 33:33I was not mature old enough is good, it felt it felt like you
- 33:36should have at the timer and that's what matters, right?
- 33:38But I went to all these men that I done business with and those
- 33:41days virtually every company that was a size was run by mail
- 33:44and I really was like, you know one kind of get him by 12, can I
- 33:48come in and help run it because they were older and everyone
- 33:52said, you should do a bank deal. But that year that the year
- 33:55before For the arm I was 89. This was a d88.
- 33:58New bank started in st. Louis, mmm.
- 34:00And you know, it just and they kept saying doing it and then
- 34:03that's how we end it was because of my original partner that that
- 34:07we did a bank deal and it was really, and I had no clue what I
- 34:10was getting into. I'll be honest with you, you
- 34:13know, the one story that that everybody jokes about the, the,
- 34:17the movement of the cash. Oh gosh, you got it.
- 34:19Well, you've got to tell that. Well, first of all, you get this
- 34:21little bank and Hoka Hoka, I don't know, remember what size
- 34:27is town that is but I'm not been to Kahoka but it's a small bank
- 34:32and you're 29:29 you're 29 and you roll into town, you take
- 34:37that, you're the guy. You you and and and I can't
- 34:41remember the name all my original problem.
- 34:43So You've got to tell the story of what you did with this cash.
- 34:48Well, it's hard to believe how stupid we are when you look back
- 34:52at it but you created culture with it.
- 34:54We did. And that's and I believe that
- 34:56that in any business in life, it's all about culture and I'm
- 34:59familiar with that story becomes Legend, right?
- 35:01And then and you do those things in overtime as you grow culture
- 35:05changes and things like that. It but you but you have to have
- 35:08a core culture. So we buy this bank and we don't
- 35:10know what we're doing now. This guy being president Bank,
- 35:12he was very smart man, knew how to run one but we just were
- 35:14Wired differently and we had a million one hundred thousand
- 35:17dollars in cash. Now that came with a deal.
- 35:21Yeah, it was. Yeah, we paid for but you don't
- 35:23do anything with it and it counts towards your reserve
- 35:25requirements when it's in your Vault, but you don't earn
- 35:28interest on it. Unless it's at the fed.
- 35:30Well, in those days fed funds, were like, what's a 9% today?
- 35:34There are about 5'4. So, nine percent on Amelia wants
- 35:38100,000 a year. Yeah.
- 35:39Well, we didn't know anything. If nobody tracked, any of this
- 35:41stuff. We didn't know how much we could
- 35:43take out but I will tell you 10 years later with 38 branches.
- 35:47I didn't have one that had more than 50,000 and it had 50 or
- 35:50more in the ATM because you just learned how to run without cash.
- 35:53And so what happens is we decide we're going to take three
- 35:56quarter million dollars and take it to the Fed.
- 35:58So I get on the phone and I call Bronx because that's what you
- 36:00called in those days. And they said, you know, they
- 36:02had their system, well, we can get the cocoa which by the way,
- 36:04is a town of 2,000 sound familiar on the Iowa line,
- 36:08couldn't have gone any further, you know, we're Christians and
- 36:11they said, we'll, we'll be there next Thursday.
- 36:14They'll be $250 and I'm thinking, let me call you back
- 36:17when I get off on it or not going to pay $250, what are they
- 36:20thinking? So literally, Brent, what were
- 36:23we thinking? We went out at 89, Buick
- 36:26LeSabre. We loaded three, cores million
- 36:28dollars in cash. It's not like you see in a movie
- 36:30where, you know, they got a briefcase.
- 36:32Yeah, you know, these are tens and twenties and fifties and
- 36:34hundreds that Buick your styling in that Buick LeSabre was some
- 36:39money. It's in the low rider position.
- 36:41I mean, I find it on I-44. I would be picked up for
- 36:44carrying marijuana. Crackers, that's who they
- 36:45profile. Big cars with their trunks.
- 36:49So I get in the car and I started driving back.
- 36:51And then as I look back at that, as 168 miles one way, you know,
- 36:55virtually grade rent was raining and 120 miles of two-lane road
- 37:00and I'm thinking what if I have an accident?
- 37:03Yeah. What if I get pulled over?
- 37:04I mean I can't even imagine what 750,000 dollars even looks like
- 37:08in the flesh. Because it's it's a lot of money
- 37:12and it's heavy. It is a lot of money too heavy.
- 37:14Now, he gets crazier because after this story came out, I
- 37:16didn't even tell anybody this, the recently and my cousin when
- 37:21I told him, that figure Shaunie is, why don't you sleep in the
- 37:23car? I didn't think of that, Brent,
- 37:25literally my oldest son to ask me that last night because I
- 37:28find that hidden watch the video.
- 37:29So I take and we unload the money and we're thinking, okay,
- 37:32we lived in Ledoux, which was nice.
- 37:34Yeah. But you know, you're not
- 37:35thinking about getting about everybody's get 750 thousand
- 37:37dollars on the floor. The their living room.
- 37:40Yeah, but we put it the favorite and we took the blanket over it
- 37:43and then everybody sleeps. And it around it.
- 37:45So if something goes wrong, we'll figure out.
- 37:47We're going to do and then about 4:00 in the morning, everybody
- 37:49gets up and you load it back in the car and it is the funny part
- 37:52is you pull down on, you came in on Fourth Street to the fed well
- 37:56at about 5:30 in the morning there's like 20 Brinks trucks in
- 37:59a red Buick. How old would your kids have
- 38:01been when they were loading that back?
- 38:02Oh yeah, they didn't help though, right?
- 38:04Okay. And one child and he was going
- 38:06to be too like the next he didn't help at all.
- 38:08No no. And in fact, last night was the
- 38:10first time he'd ever heard this story.
- 38:11It's a crazy. It's one of the craziest stories
- 38:13I've heard but You know, it's it's what and he say, 250.
- 38:18But like, what I love about this is because, you know, so much as
- 38:22sales is storytelling so much. A closing deals is storytelling.
- 38:27So much a building culture in a company, is having a legendary
- 38:31story that becomes Legend. And that is one of those type of
- 38:35stories because it says something about what triggered
- 38:39that in your brain was, we're not paying 250 for that.
- 38:41Yeah, but you lined your Buick Up with the Brinks trucks down
- 38:46at the FED. Yep.
- 38:47It just in the united only even know if this is it.
- 38:49I wonder if that's ever even happened before.
- 38:51Probably a Buick LeSabre lined up with the Brinks trucks at the
- 38:54festival after 9/11. I don't know.
- 38:56They let you get the puppy when which, especially when they saw
- 38:59in the low, right had to be a bomb, you know?
- 39:01But exactly. But no you're right culture and
- 39:03culture so important in everything in life.
- 39:05Yeah. But it, but it's created by
- 39:07moments like that. Yeah.
- 39:09Moments like that. So you get going with this bank
- 39:12teller walk us through how this be becomes Allegiant.
- 39:17Well, We get going and we've been added about 2 years and we
- 39:22had a bad year 91 and I had made a mistake and made a lot of
- 39:28mistakes in my life, some really big ones, but I had raised over
- 39:31half the money. I said probably a met with
- 39:35everybody to raise it but over half the money, it was from
- 39:38people, I knew less than five years and I went to probably 400
- 39:42people to Summer of 89 89. People gave me two million five,
- 39:46hundred and sixty five thousand dollars.
- 39:50That's some salad. That's what we got selling.
- 39:52And so We're Off to the Races, but there were nine board seats
- 39:55and I took one and there was an accountant to help me introduce
- 39:59me. Some people and I took him and
- 40:00the other seven were friends of my partner.
- 40:04But using a very entrepreneurial Dynamic, man.
- 40:08He was chairman and not, then but he became chairman.
- 40:12And he said, I want to take you to dinner.
- 40:13We went to dinner and he said Shawn this not working.
- 40:15He said, you ought to be running the place and I said, well, it's
- 40:18not going to happen because, you know, okay, now the votes 623
- 40:21and he goes, I think you're selling yourself short and
- 40:23Brent. I am almost said this a while
- 40:25ago, but it's a better time to say this.
- 40:27I did operate my whole life in the gray.
- 40:29Mmm, but what I did up until I got lost, I always As went to
- 40:33lawyers, and I would say if you already see Brent, I want to do
- 40:37this. Tell me how legally I can do it,
- 40:39and then I'll decide if it's worth the aggravation.
- 40:41Yep. So we went to this lawyer and it
- 40:44cost $600 for about a ten-minute meeting, but it's best $600 or
- 40:47has been our lives. He said, here's we're going to
- 40:49do. We're going to draft a
- 40:51resolution, and you're going to put nine names on it and then
- 40:54you go to the ones. Obviously, we put his name on it
- 40:57but you're not going to go to him.
- 40:59Excuse me. And we're going to do is we're
- 41:00going to have you get them to say that the Board meeting.
- 41:04And then we set this up for the board meetings, a week away.
- 41:06As on a Wednesday, we met with you on a Monday, it was a small
- 41:10meeting a different kind of meeting, and we're going to hand
- 41:12it to him and say, look, here's a copy, we've got five, how many
- 41:16of you've got? Well, we got six what, the catch
- 41:20in that wasn't the gray was a director, can only vote in a
- 41:25meeting, a shareholder. Can give you a proxy, but that's
- 41:28that thing we gave him. It wasn't illegal in a law
- 41:31since, you know, a criminal offense.
- 41:33It's, but it was one worth the paper.
- 41:34It's written on, but the bluff paid off.
- 41:37And by operating that gray, well, he could, he went to the
- 41:40meeting immediately blew up right now.
- 41:42The room went to one director. Now it was went from 6 to 3 to 5
- 41:45to 4. We went to another one who hired
- 41:47him at Mark Twain woman whose brilliant genius could read
- 41:50people like I never know my life.
- 41:52She said well what do you took you so long to do this?
- 41:54Of course I'm like well that was 63 and it was over.
- 41:58Hmm. And so now then I'm just turned
- 42:0133 and I'm the CEO. And we were a 50 million dollar
- 42:05bank and this is something that people don't really realize.
- 42:10We grew 50-fold brand in nine years and such growth.
- 42:15We grew earnings for hundredfold.
- 42:18And so it was like a it was what it feel, like it was a rocket
- 42:21ride. It was a and I was I want to
- 42:23stop and say this when it came time to sell I had no problems.
- 42:28It was time. Yeah.
- 42:29You knew it we'd been together 15 years.
- 42:31It's like it run its course but those those ten years after we
- 42:36bought our my partner out, 11 years, just Nominal when you
- 42:40guys were known. I mean you and I really never
- 42:42cross paths a couple of times but you were known as the bank,
- 42:49you know, that was on the rise, the bank that was making things
- 42:52happen and that had to feel a certain way to you after all the
- 42:56different things that you'd been through being on that rise.
- 42:59Being in that power position being in the the know of a guy
- 43:05that had it going on in a city like st.
- 43:08Louis. And it was a drunk.
- 43:09Yeah. Be a drug and it in, that's the
- 43:13beginning of the end and then and a lot of ways.
- 43:16But I have to digress here and talk about our paths Crossing
- 43:20because in 1986. Yeah, your dad and you all lived
- 43:25on the do Road? Yes.
- 43:26Want to say Ledoux road? Yeah.
- 43:28And you banked at you and be and of course, Iran corporate
- 43:31banking. Then one of my Bankers said, you
- 43:32need to go out to the do road. We got to go look at this house.
- 43:36And so we go out there and this gentleman who turned out to be
- 43:38your dad's only time we'd ever met I'd ever met him and and he
- 43:42said, I want to do this addition here and I'm going to change the
- 43:46front of the house and it's gonna become Oak, lack of the
- 43:48house. It was beautiful.
- 43:50It was a brilliant, he changed the value because be a 99,
- 43:54whatever linear ode was 94. 45 would erode was not good, no,
- 43:58but being 21 Oakley or for Oakley, right?
- 44:01Was like changed everything, right?
- 44:02Totally. It was brilliant.
- 44:04And we talked about that for years even though I never knew
- 44:06Got never saw your dad again. Then I played golf maybe a dozen
- 44:11times in my life. Yeah.
- 44:12And you know, I have a family full of great golfers.
- 44:14Do I'm not one of them. So my brother broke off for so
- 44:18long to say no, and I'm out of st.
- 44:21Albans, with a very prominent. African-American lawyer Minister
- 44:25who I can't think of his name right now, but was the African
- 44:28American minister in this. If something happened to cities,
- 44:30long-dead was there, and my brother-in-law, we're playing
- 44:32golf. And my phone goes off, and it's
- 44:34a realtor. And This is Shawn, he goes, I've
- 44:37got a house on polo. We can buy and he goes, I know
- 44:42you're looking for your help, your brother-in-law find a
- 44:44different house. So, my brother-in-law is when
- 44:48exponent one that was very cost-conscious and so there's a
- 44:52bidding war between you and my brother.
- 44:54He said this Cassidy guy has got a lot of money but you could you
- 44:56can pay for and I know you didn't well, Michael couldn't
- 45:00get there and you bought that you turn in a magnificent and it
- 45:04was privileged enough to come into it but one of my son's best
- 45:07friends. She grew up next door to you
- 45:09almost. Yeah, and Margo and so I would
- 45:13need time I drop off a building. I think.
- 45:14Oh! That Cassie made a great bite.
- 45:16Now One More Story. Let's this one.
- 45:18You don't know at all. Okay, I didn't know that one.
- 45:20Now with this is this is even in this one is Bittersweet for both
- 45:24of us. And it's not about your Dad yet.
- 45:25I won't go there and that's what I'll get emotional because he
- 45:28was a wonderful man. But so it's 2008 and I had lost
- 45:34all this money and Banking and real estate because I lost my
- 45:37Edge and it's time to leave National City.
- 45:40And I owned at that time, probably like five or six or
- 45:42seven office building parts of the Clayton.
- 45:44So I knew I was going to move. Bye.
- 45:46Timmy furniture and you all were in receivership and a partner of
- 45:51mine said there's some beautiful Furniture over there and I love
- 45:54that building for a lot of reasons that we did too.
- 45:57We won't go into because it we won't take the time but just to
- 46:00st. Louis history that building.
- 46:01It was a landmark dining room up there, and I'll go over there
- 46:03with mr. Clean, who is a competitor?
- 46:04But treated me, he and Adam earrings and treated me
- 46:07unbelievably well as a competitor.
- 46:09But so that the sales, like, at 10:00.
- 46:12So we put young guys in fire escapes.
- 46:16And there were two elevators and we had young guys in the first
- 46:18place. So, we were the first no matter
- 46:20who went to go bid. We were first and I went to your
- 46:23office and I bought your about your entire office.
- 46:25It was nice stuff. It was that partner's desk was
- 46:27unbelievable. I loved it.
- 46:29And what the sad thing for me was and my ex-wife.
- 46:32Now has the sofa. Yeah.
- 46:33You know, still was that we put it down in the, with the kids
- 46:35area downstairs and we love that sofa.
- 46:37She so has it but your desk when I got in all my legal troubles,
- 46:42I sold to a lawyer and that's something but that desk I love
- 46:45to that. Add a thousand wives that dust
- 46:47mite that they see that. That's how that is a connection.
- 46:50Yeah, all the way through. I so child, going through this
- 46:57bringing back a lot of different things when you went through and
- 47:02I think it's the part that's interesting in your book, you
- 47:05have this tremendous rise, you get involved with so many
- 47:09different people that are movers and shakers in the st.
- 47:11Louis Community, you know it's time to sell.
- 47:16National City becomes The Suitor and you become a guy.
- 47:23Now, that has he sell it for a half a billion dollars?
- 47:25You're 44 years old, I believe you've done it.
- 47:31What? What's going through your mind?
- 47:35Because I'm sure there was a latian, you know, that you've
- 47:37accomplished this gigantic goal. What were you thinking?
- 47:42Here's where I made my mistake. One, I was time.
- 47:46I was ready. It was right thing to do and I
- 47:48had, and I bought so many banks, along the way, it was like a 2.5
- 47:51billion dollar bank is the fifth-largest.
- 47:55He's a big bank. And by the way, you would never
- 47:57know it because my, you know, I office did 4333 4323 North
- 48:01Grand. Oh, that was the other thing.
- 48:03You talked about the carpet that you got is a deal.
- 48:05Oh yeah, this is a national city and we get down to the end and
- 48:09they said the CEO. Wonderful gentleman, says, you
- 48:13know Sean, I'm waiting for him to die.
- 48:14Hammer to drop because I would have tried drop the hammer and
- 48:16he says, he goes, you know, we're done, we'll do dogs, do
- 48:18they know we want to go through this deal, but I'm thinking
- 48:20here's the but, but we have to say, your office's, need a
- 48:23little sprucing up. Well, they did for two reasons,
- 48:26one, because our larger Stone Art, end up being our second,
- 48:30largest shareholder, by that time and I was the third, he
- 48:32young, he was in the Coatings business and so he knew a lot
- 48:36about carpet. So we bought a trailer truck
- 48:38load of see green. There you go, seaweed green
- 48:41carpet. And that's we put down by the
- 48:43way was a dollar a square. Our first by, by the square
- 48:45foot. So be like eight cents a square
- 48:47foot but it didn't look good. But we would buy a bank for him
- 48:50and after we get the deal signed we go through Furniture
- 48:52shopping, I wouldn't go through it.
- 48:53Like, you'd be with me, you know, the top guys.
- 48:55And I got, I want that picture. And you don't want that so far.
- 48:57I want this because we didn't buy anything, we were scavengers
- 49:02and that's, that was the culture.
- 49:03Yeah. But what I learned along the way
- 49:05and it's amazing, especially when I read the Wall Street
- 49:07Journal, and I look at business, We're felons.
- 49:10Yeah. And we're branded, but honestly
- 49:14I didn't buy a bank from anybody.
- 49:15And there's a lawyer who told me said, Sean virtually every
- 49:18businessman in America, commits three felonies.
- 49:20And yeah, there's a book on that.
- 49:21And I believe that and I but these guys, you had to legally,
- 49:25bribe them to sell you their company.
- 49:26They didn't care about their shareholders.
- 49:28I was at lunch one time with a mutual friend of ours.
- 49:29Don Davis. Brought a guy that was a big
- 49:31shareholder in a small bank and the other guy they started, same
- 49:33time, we didn't buy this time. We were 20 times their size, and
- 49:36the guy looked at me, he was actually for Springfield now
- 49:38that I think a prefilled move on to end up in st.
- 49:41Louis. And he looked at me at the end
- 49:42of lunch. He goes, he goes I really
- 49:44enjoyed meeting you, he said, but here's the deal.
- 49:46Sean, a third of my shareholders hate me, a third of my
- 49:49shareholders, love me in a third, don't care.
- 49:51And until the third don't care do something.
- 49:54It's the best job I've ever had. It sounds like a politician.
- 49:57And that's Corporate America. And so in our case, it's you,
- 50:02because I own so much stock and I had a golden pair shoes, were
- 50:05a couple million dollars and I was ready.
- 50:07It was just what it wasn't about me.
- 50:09It was about doing the right sure, the shareholder and I
- 50:11always felt like I could say that.
- 50:13But what I Austin, that was and I was powerful.
- 50:16And you had all this information, I still had some
- 50:19access to that, but I became seduced by the fact that this
- 50:23was the eighth largest bank in the country and I was like
- 50:25number one hundred of you know, seven or eight thousand holding
- 50:28companies, not individual things.
- 50:31And I mean, when they wanted me to come to Cleveland, they sent
- 50:34a jet, you know, 20 million dollars yet with two pilots and
- 50:36pick me up. And I was home for dinner.
- 50:38I'm here, it's nice. Yeah, it's very nice and but I
- 50:41lost I didn't lose drive, but I lost his street smarts, that
- 50:46fueled the drive, and then after four years, when it was time to
- 50:50leave, and I'd lost so much money, I had to make it back and
- 50:53I ended up getting into. I didn't realize because I was
- 50:55so insulated. I didn't realize how bad the
- 50:58world was. I'd lost it Street intelligence
- 51:01and then I went back into it and that's when just not only is
- 51:06everything going bad in my world.
- 51:08Then everything I had dealt with was bad and then what I didn't
- 51:11have was I I didn't have the people.
- 51:13Right? What was nice about National
- 51:14City. It was an intellectual people
- 51:18are so intelligent. Sure you know guy and I was in a
- 51:20small group, they paid you a hundred thousand dollars to take
- 51:23an executive management class and stock in one of our four
- 51:26people in my group and one of them had been number one is
- 51:29Harvard Law. School class went to Mackenzie.
- 51:31And I was like the third highest guy in their retail division,
- 51:34your talk of brilliant men than women Alabama football team.
- 51:37Yeah, I think I'm candy. People didn't get a fight for
- 51:39her, you'd understand. Yeah, they got, they got four
- 51:40more behind him at tight in and they got hit.
- 51:42Exactly. But but the intellectual part
- 51:45was wonderful but I that didn't work in the world.
- 51:48I was going into in my people had all gone their own way and
- 51:51I'm very proud of the fact about 10 miles of my.
- 51:52Yeah. Tell my guys going to be a quite
- 51:54a tree of people that have been successful.
- 51:57Yeah. But I couldn't put a man like
- 51:59that back together and then this is what got me to prison.
- 52:04Is I didn't have the resources and I didn't take the time to
- 52:10always ask the lawyer. How can I do it legally?
- 52:13Or if I couldn't then I would know.
- 52:15Because now I'm also thinking I'm smarter, but I'm also
- 52:18fighting fire after fire and I didn't take any money, but I
- 52:22still committed crime. I'd never.
- 52:23I don't deny that. At all, I tried to buy myself
- 52:25time. I thought, if I do this, and I
- 52:28can make it, yeah, really all about time to time to get to
- 52:31here to here and connect the dots.
- 52:33It's to survive because at the time that that kind of stuff was
- 52:37happening, there was the whole world of Finance was was in a
- 52:44different position than it was ever been.
- 52:47I guess is what you'd say, right?
- 52:48And I do the real estate crash and you had the Lehman Brothers,
- 52:51you had everything that was just a turn spiral, The Dominoes just
- 52:55starting from. Yeah.
- 52:56And I've never not. I've never, I always say, I made
- 52:59those decisions. I did it myself, I have no
- 53:00problem saying that, but it's amazing that I think I might
- 53:03have been We Banker in the country that went to prison.
- 53:05Hmm. And you know, I dealt with
- 53:08biggest banks in the country and sure kinds of program and we
- 53:11used to joke about the Chinese wall.
- 53:13Yeah. You know an investment house,
- 53:15it's either 6 inches or 18 feet depending on where they need it.
- 53:18Yeah. And I'm not and I'm not letting
- 53:20anybody it's not that it was me but I was I was the one and I
- 53:25deserved it. So going, I mean because you
- 53:30went through a series of Acquisitions as you described in
- 53:34your book again, putting together smaller Banks and as
- 53:40this is going on, the world is crumbling around and and do you
- 53:45think if you would have had your group that maybe those things
- 53:49would have been talked out differently?
- 53:51Or do you think that was just a environment of the moment and
- 53:55things went as they were did because I'll bifurcated.
- 53:59We would have failed anyway. Yeah.
- 54:01Because the macroeconomics, which is just that way.
- 54:03There was a tidal wave would be a compliment.
- 54:06Yes. Would I have ended up in prison?
- 54:09Maybe maybe not, you know, because I think I would had
- 54:12people around me. Who would have checked me
- 54:14better? Yeah.
- 54:15And in that might have saved me, but it might not have I, you
- 54:18know, I didn't say that. And, well, let's talk about when
- 54:21things start, when your nightmare becomes real.
- 54:25That, you know, that It's you're going to get indicted because
- 54:30when you get indicted of course, a lot of people believe
- 54:33indictment is conviction but and in the real world that actually
- 54:36does become that. How, what is going on?
- 54:42How are you dealing with it? And can you walk us through when
- 54:46the nightmare begins? When you're going into your
- 54:49world of, this is the end. I'm going to deal with it.
- 54:52And are they coming to get me? Well, and I'll back up a little
- 54:56and might the crime I committed was in 09.
- 54:59In the end of September of 13, I was walking out of a board
- 55:02meeting of a club, I was on my phone, rang, it was a lawyer,
- 55:07not a criminal lawyer, but he dealt so much.
- 55:10Is that the the I'm sure this in every city but in st.
- 55:13Louis the US attorney's office is a leaky ship.
- 55:16Hmm. You know, and he he said he
- 55:19said, Sean and I had this been going actually the FBI showed up
- 55:22at my house, like an April, when I was out in California, visit
- 55:24my two sons in college and I met with him in June and we talked
- 55:28and he came back and he goes, you're okay, they're not going
- 55:30to indict you their past, their passing on you.
- 55:32And I was never really there Target.
- 55:34That was my co-defendant not for me.
- 55:35Not for because of me because of his own actions and So I think,
- 55:42okay, you take, that's huge. And then about early December of
- 55:4715, the same man calls and says, Sean, their back on you.
- 55:51And here's why, and they were still so on him, that they'd
- 55:56turn somebody else. Well, now, they were looking at
- 55:58stuff, they weren't looking at before.
- 56:01And what I had done was the transaction that I had
- 56:03facilitated was through him and truthfully and I'm not saying it
- 56:08should have because I wouldn't be who I am today.
- 56:10Had it worked out. No one would ever know.
- 56:11I would just disappear, it wasn't money.
- 56:12There wasn't money, missing and we just bought time and but he
- 56:16was it in a real estate deal. It was and the bank approved the
- 56:21loan, but you were part of the real estate deal.
- 56:24And that's, that's where the connection was.
- 56:26You can't do that when you own the percentage, I write it had,
- 56:29he just sold and paid off, like it should have right?
- 56:32And never would have happened. We've been gone.
- 56:34What happened was is because he was so buried, he just looked as
- 56:38I check the box and then he forgot about it.
- 56:40And it's on me, not him. Yeah.
- 56:42And so that came out about through another guy, get into
- 56:46this game because of him who was part of that real estate
- 56:48transaction. So and of course, he never even
- 56:50got indicted, which is fine, but that's how he got out.
- 56:53And then once they looked at that, then they had me but
- 56:55ironically I want to go forward over a year two years when I got
- 57:01indicted and we finally reach an agreement, I had to tell the
- 57:04feds. They had a room full of people.
- 57:06I had to tell him what the crime was hmm.
- 57:07It was so complicated. Hmm.
- 57:10So, but back to then, so I find out and the week before
- 57:13Christmas. I go see Scott Rosenblum and
- 57:17Scott has me his office and I talked to him and he says, he
- 57:20just calls us attorney right there.
- 57:24You know, their secretaries one moment he says I'm sitting with
- 57:26Sean Hayes. Is he going to get indicted?
- 57:27He said any day, any day. So we hung up and I said Scott,
- 57:31I said what do you want? He said a quarter million, I see
- 57:37myself by that point, I didn't have a Quartermaine.
- 57:39I wasn't going to ask my family so I suffered through Christmas
- 57:43and the day after Christmas, I told my wife and you've been
- 57:46down that path and if all the things that have happened in
- 57:50this, It's what you've done to your family, whether
- 57:55intentionally or unintentionally is the cost.
- 57:58Yeah, in fact, I said when I was in prison Only hurt my family.
- 58:05You know, this isn't that bad for me.
- 58:08But obviously, didn't go over well and then you hit the
- 58:13depression and was she was she aware of any of it?
- 58:18Sean at the time. So she was, she just didn't know
- 58:22when well and she never knew the crime still done to this day and
- 58:27she was a lawyer and practice law.
- 58:29But Forget that the US attorney's office.
- 58:32Leaky ship. It goes to every lawyer in town.
- 58:33Sure. She's getting her own
- 58:34information outside of me, but, and your kids.
- 58:41What are the ages of the kids? When this is coming down, let's
- 58:44see a little 11 to 28, okay. Then never told any of them,
- 58:50anything, obviously. So, in March that, now months,
- 58:55two months go by and nothing happens.
- 58:58I get a criminal lawyer through a friend.
- 59:00And through some friends and we go down and meet with them and
- 59:04we look at it and it's an unbelievably complex case.
- 59:07Obviously, if a year and a half later I did tell them what I
- 59:10did. And we think you said you only
- 59:12said Johnny, Goes you're getting indicted and he says you're
- 59:15going now. He says, you know, I feel good
- 59:17about court and I even felt good about court and that point and
- 59:21even though I told my wife and she said Sean 97% of all people
- 59:24get convicted, right that get him, dad died, it United get
- 59:27convicted, you know, so your toes.
- 59:29But So, we met with us, Assistant Attorney.
- 59:32And he said, now, I'm gonna tell my client to carry his passport.
- 59:36So that he can turn himself in. Hmm.
- 59:38So on April in mid-april this is what's horrible about the
- 59:42government. I'd go to Jeff City.
- 59:44I own part of the health care company to finish the good,
- 59:47we've investigated for something we were totally cleared the
- 59:49employee quit. Everything is going to went down
- 59:50to pay the lawyer and I thank him and solve some documents.
- 59:53And I came back to chest, feel Valley to watch my youngest son,
- 59:56play baseball. And when I get there, he's just
- 1:00:00number two hitter and the number leadoff hitters up.
- 1:00:02I'm setting it all of a sudden I get tapped on the shoulder and
- 1:00:05there's an FBI agent. You interviewed me a few years
- 1:00:07before he says, can you come with me?
- 1:00:09And I turned the corner of like six, mmm, and they didn't need
- 1:00:13to do that in front of my own. That's horrible.
- 1:00:15And they took me to Jennings to hold place where I spent the
- 1:00:19night with a guy who could his son the same age?
- 1:00:21They thought I was non-trump, cuz I'm walking in a suit and
- 1:00:24actually my belt, which one, but best.
- 1:00:25If my wife ever gave me got stolen that night, my Gucci.
- 1:00:28Oh, my Who's got stolen amazingly, amazing.
- 1:00:30Yeah. And, and this place.
- 1:00:32Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- 1:00:33It was Security in cameras and antique belt buckle.
- 1:00:36So, this day, I'm angry about the only thing I'm really angry
- 1:00:38about their belt buckle my bubble, as I wanted to give to
- 1:00:41my son. So I spent 18 days in jail
- 1:00:44because I had to prove Brent. I want a Flight Risk because now
- 1:00:48when they put you through your arraignment, my lawyers, like,
- 1:00:51what you're gonna get out, and they go, well, we found mr.
- 1:00:54Hayes's, passport on him, and it appears that he was in position
- 1:00:58A fly. Hmm.
- 1:00:59Why wouldn't go anywhere? I was doing what they told me
- 1:01:01that everything they do. They twist sir it.
- 1:01:05What people don't realize is, you know, our most people don't
- 1:01:09realize is there's your story and my story and then the truth
- 1:01:12is in between exactly. And I'm not saying they're
- 1:01:14lying, right? But they don't bitch all pieces,
- 1:01:17right? They do what they want to tell
- 1:01:18it's him. So I spent 18 days in the county
- 1:01:19jail so long time in the county jail in St.
- 1:01:22Charles, but I see in the movies, I did very well actually
- 1:01:25they ended up calling me Kevin McHale because I play
- 1:01:27basketball. This guy's on a basketball court
- 1:01:29knows the only white guy of the Kill Ya and Boston Celtics,
- 1:01:33yeah. For the few non basketball fans,
- 1:01:35so I did that for eight days and then I went out on pretrial and
- 1:01:37what I didn't have when I was on pretrial was one, I get out, I
- 1:01:41get out, I go to one of my partner's condo, they gave me to
- 1:01:45live in, and I go up to take a shower, you know, I've taken one
- 1:01:48every day, but now to take a shower and the doorbell rings
- 1:01:51and I go downstairs of town. I get served with divorce
- 1:01:53papers. Oh man, so my day in going real
- 1:01:55well, but what I didn't get for my lawyer because he His
- 1:01:58criminal all, but really in this for time is I start off with a
- 1:02:02pre-trial officer. That doesn't care what I do.
- 1:02:04And I end up one that cares about everything about six
- 1:02:07months in and so, and that can happen is very common.
- 1:02:09Oh yeah, they trains like yeah they change like the like today
- 1:02:12just had a conversation the other day.
- 1:02:14It was somebody that had had that happen to him.
- 1:02:16So almost a year to the day from when I was arrested the first
- 1:02:21time I go down, they said you need to come in which you saw
- 1:02:23him once a month. Just in a few times, I gonna go
- 1:02:26down here and then I sat down and then do you Marshalls come
- 1:02:28in and cut the arm down as you're under arrest.
- 1:02:31Mmm, I get a rebound pretrial at this point I get a rain a couple
- 1:02:34hours later and actually, that was the best thing that ever
- 1:02:38happened to me. Because when I get to the rest
- 1:02:42of the story, you'll figure out why.
- 1:02:43But part of it was, doesn't sound good?
- 1:02:45No, it's good. Because I was chewin up time,
- 1:02:47okay? You know you your what, you
- 1:02:50know, every those 18 days counted, which I didn't know.
- 1:02:52Okay, at that point. And from the time they arrested
- 1:02:54me in April of 17 starts accounting but they Don't talk
- 1:02:58to me until Thanksgiving so I said, seven months and why did
- 1:03:02they, why did they arrest you? They said you were violating the
- 1:03:06terms of your supervision are your pretrial, which would have
- 1:03:10been exhibit were business things and what they said was,
- 1:03:15is it? I had a friend that was a very
- 1:03:18good friend and a long time and he said, we don't have a job,
- 1:03:21you're a consultant. So I said, I was a consultant,
- 1:03:23right? Well, they want you to have a 40
- 1:03:25hour, 30 are not a consultant job, right?
- 1:03:27You don't want you to Working independently or be a
- 1:03:30consultant, right? And they like, they always do a
- 1:03:32woman. And I, by the way, I so it
- 1:03:34probably wasn't a problem with one of the probation officers.
- 1:03:37But it was a turn in. We're going to put him in the
- 1:03:40county, jail, on the other one. Exactly Incorrect.
- 1:03:42And here's the best choice, I hate quit banking not because I
- 1:03:45quit because I was tired. Yeah.
- 1:03:48Then a few years later, like, three year, I got banned, which
- 1:03:50is fine. I didn't care about then.
- 1:03:51I didn't care what right over with that.
- 1:03:54A lifelong friend had sent me an email with her mortgage payment,
- 1:03:58And she's and said, should I react when she said, call me one
- 1:04:02day and said Sancho refinances? I don't know.
- 1:04:04I said, I need to know your interest rate.
- 1:04:05How much, you know, because you know if you don't know but
- 1:04:0780,000 serves it didn't worth it and if you're just raised four
- 1:04:10percent of didn't worth it, right?
- 1:04:11She emailed me, her bill That man.
- 1:04:14I was in the banking business. Wow.
- 1:04:16I mean you can just yeah, no, no, I get it.
- 1:04:18I get it. I understand.
- 1:04:19And then they can do that. That's fair game and I was
- 1:04:22stupid enough to have it. How long did they, how long did
- 1:04:26you live in the county jail? Well, I spent the first seven
- 1:04:30months, you know, communication from the from the US attorney.
- 1:04:35Nothing. You're just in time.
- 1:04:36Just in and and I did not, what is your attorney saying?
- 1:04:40Well, you know that, you know, they're, you know, it's there by
- 1:04:42stalling Yugi. It's the game.
- 1:04:44They play. And so what happens along the
- 1:04:48way is is that why I get my by yet Bond reinstatement denied
- 1:04:53and all that? By the way, that was on the
- 1:04:55internet before I got told that, you know, you know, my ex-wife
- 1:04:58got to tell me on the phone your case and I'll get know, I don't
- 1:05:01get to go to court yet to get denied I'm denied and which was
- 1:05:04again, is it ends up being? Okay.
- 1:05:07But, so finally around Thanksgiving, they say we want
- 1:05:11to negotiate and the reason why we became What was a hearing in
- 1:05:15early December? And it was to bifurcate my trial
- 1:05:18from my co-defendant. Well, he had been and he had, he
- 1:05:24had done a contract for Deeds on houses.
- 1:05:26You're a real estate business. You understand that?
- 1:05:29And he wouldn't pay in the bank. Oh, 212.
- 1:05:31Families were losing their homes because him and my lawyer said,
- 1:05:36here's what's going to happen. If they took the money, didn't
- 1:05:38pay the bank. Exactly.
- 1:05:39Okay. And he said, he said, here's
- 1:05:41what's going to happen, John. If the trial gets Bifurcated,
- 1:05:45your case is so complicated, you're probably going to win,
- 1:05:48okay? He said, but if you set there
- 1:05:52and they bring 212 families in here, you're in trouble, your
- 1:05:55dad cause you're the same table. Exactly.
- 1:05:57They didn't bifurcated trial. So, I had to plead guilty.
- 1:06:00I was guilty, but you're willing to gamble, right?
- 1:06:02When you got a high probability. Sure.
- 1:06:04And he said, Not only that but you get at least 20 years that's
- 1:06:08the minimums long time. So we started negotiating and
- 1:06:13finally cut a deal at the end of the year and so but they kept I
- 1:06:18was supposed to get sins in April then became May finally
- 1:06:20the end of May, I got got sentenced, but here's the kind
- 1:06:23of thing again, my lawyer, you know, me not want to bother
- 1:06:26because only thirty thousand dollars and to I thought that I
- 1:06:31was, he's 46 months. Now, there's a category of 37 to
- 1:06:3546 months. And then the next one is like,
- 1:06:3847 to 50, for something like that.
- 1:06:40You've seen those sheets. I know, well, I'm thinking I'm
- 1:06:42in the 37 to 46 months. Mmm, so on May 23rd of 2017
- 1:06:49after at then, fifth 13 months in the 13 months, in the county,
- 1:06:54jail a month before. So I've got 14 months, in
- 1:06:56County, Jail near a Warren County Jail, which I was at, and
- 1:06:58that is not good. Well, it's a total.
- 1:07:00It's a hard way to live. It is our we're seeing is it's
- 1:07:03made for 24 people. Yeah.
- 1:07:05There's 36 guy sleeps on the floor.
- 1:07:07Yeah, plastic thing. And when somebody gets up at
- 1:07:10night to go to the bathroom, they have to be together.
- 1:07:12It's right there, right there with them.
- 1:07:13And not only that, I didn't go outside for, for 14 months
- 1:07:18months, you can't go outside. When you go to jail, you go from
- 1:07:20one port to another Port. You never go outside, right?
- 1:07:23Always Shackled. But the people there were very
- 1:07:25know. I never went to court by this.
- 1:07:26The other thing is I never went to court when I got to prison
- 1:07:28high school, he was huge. In cuffed, I said, I didn't want
- 1:07:31Court, I wouldn't Shackled and they go.
- 1:07:34Well, we didn't have that, but ninety percent of White Collar
- 1:07:36people. I met in person, never never,
- 1:07:38never been handcuffed. I was shocked about the
- 1:07:40shackling because I went through that for the Civil Trial and
- 1:07:44they took me where you've explained in your book, The
- 1:07:46bowels of the Eagleton building, which nobody knows about.
- 1:07:49Unless you brought in the way we were brought him, but yeah, that
- 1:07:54shackle and thing. There's nothing more
- 1:07:56dehumanizing than that, and it got to beat by the type in there
- 1:07:59so long. At the end, they used to take
- 1:08:00your handcuffs off, but by the end, there been so many fights,
- 1:08:04they kept your shackles and you would be in there from 6:00 7:00
- 1:08:07a.m. until 4:00 5:00 p.m. And then you got to write an
- 1:08:10hour and check old in a, in an uncomfortable, this not good,
- 1:08:13but all that stuff. Again, I could I could deal with
- 1:08:15because I do. I don't ride dealt with Warren
- 1:08:18County, Jail, like High School in, small-town highschool, we
- 1:08:22had fed people, we had State people, and we'd County people.
- 1:08:26You never sit down to eat because you had to be ready to
- 1:08:29fight. So you ate your food, stand up
- 1:08:31in a moment. There's a fistfight.
- 1:08:33There's one every day. Yep.
- 1:08:34Usually over the some drink, the drink TV that the only TV.
- 1:08:38There's, I mean, I finally after about 90 days here and one
- 1:08:43African-American friend of mine beating to other, I got to
- 1:08:46control the TV on Saturdays between like 8.
- 1:08:50A.m. That's a big deal.
- 1:08:51Yeah, 21. And then a few months later I
- 1:08:53got to control from 8 to 1 every day and I have to tell you a
- 1:08:57funny story, the TV stayed on 24 hours a day on 100, the highest
- 1:09:03level could be so you couldn't think anywhere forgive the noise
- 1:09:05out there but all night long. Have you played really loud?
- 1:09:08Yeah really loud and really high up really high butts.
- 1:09:11One night, the guy who controlled the flipper for a few
- 1:09:14minutes, put it on a channel and I don't know what happened to
- 1:09:19the show is watching but it played Mayberry, you know our
- 1:09:22trainee Griffin from 11 p.m. until 8 a.m. wow.
- 1:09:26It was hilarious because that didn't go over well with our my
- 1:09:29spirit. But, you know, there was a fight
- 1:09:32every day over something and you just get through that.
- 1:09:34But it got to what you adapted. And I think that's one of the
- 1:09:36things that you learn when you're going through this whole
- 1:09:39thing because you've gone from being the most powerful guy in
- 1:09:42the banking business, to selling out to living the life being
- 1:09:47picked up in private jets. And now, you are wondering how
- 1:09:52you're going to turn the channel on the TV because a guy's got
- 1:09:55the clicker and Fight every day. And it's a different world that
- 1:10:00you can adapt to. Yes, that's what's interesting.
- 1:10:04People think that, well, I always say nothing is as bad as
- 1:10:09your mind, makes it out to be, not even present and jail is.
- 1:10:13It's almost as bad as you might can make it out to be, but your
- 1:10:18mind can build up so many different things that stop you
- 1:10:21from doing things in life, right?
- 1:10:24And if people would just know that, That it's going to be all
- 1:10:27right, because you can adapt to it.
- 1:10:28Absolutely. As so well said, and that's the
- 1:10:31whole experience, and I self punish myself.
- 1:10:34In this regard, I didn't realize this because I hadn't been the
- 1:10:37situation, but everything's about commissary in jail and a,
- 1:10:40yeah, I know, in the 15 months old.
- 1:10:42I spent, you know, how much money in commissary 0.
- 1:10:45Yeah, I wouldn't let anybody send me any money because I
- 1:10:49thought it was it was a horrible thing anyway.
- 1:10:52But I watch these guys, who, you know, didn't have anything take
- 1:10:55money from their You didn't have anything to have something.
- 1:10:58Yeah. Yeah.
- 1:10:59And I got stuff because they call me Google.
- 1:11:01Yeah. They need an answer.
- 1:11:02They can you make it? So they can mean anything?
- 1:11:05Answer. One morning, it's like 2:00 in
- 1:11:06the morning. I'm sound asleep and they can't
- 1:11:08get out. But they scream loud enough that
- 1:11:09they wake up one of my cell mates, that they go go through
- 1:11:11door. How many times you Google and
- 1:11:14pod? Father.
- 1:11:15Oh yeah. And literally I was in The
- 1:11:17Godfather kill free. People realized he could have
- 1:11:21got ten years instead. He went to trial got like 400
- 1:11:23there you go but but Noah How many home runs did somebody hit
- 1:11:27me? When I answered a question, I
- 1:11:28went back to school. The next day, I get soups and
- 1:11:31never needed anything. You got that, you got it from
- 1:11:33work in your system and you got respect in this.
- 1:11:35It's okay. So you finally Sean, you get out
- 1:11:38of this horrible environment to go to prison.
- 1:11:42Yeah, and I'm sure you probably knew the prison was going to be
- 1:11:46better because there were probably people telling you in
- 1:11:48that pod that this is really, really bad worst place on our.
- 1:11:52Yeah. You will have a place that you
- 1:11:54could live, that will be prison. But it won't be like this.
- 1:11:59Walk me through you finally get to Marion, you're on a bus the
- 1:12:05bunch of people, they drop you off as you explain it.
- 1:12:09What happens? Well, I write a bus from from
- 1:12:13the Mid-America airport which by the way.
- 1:12:14That's where everybody has an AR-15.
- 1:12:15It's Con Air lands. Yes.
- 1:12:17And I don't know what I'm doing but they don't finally.
- 1:12:19I figured I said I get on that bus considering this house is
- 1:12:21old snub-nosed School Bus. There's guys with guns and
- 1:12:24rifles and I get on there. I'm the only non sex offender on
- 1:12:28the Bus. Oh no.
- 1:12:30Which is a whole another story. Yeah, that's a whole nother
- 1:12:32level of discomfort people are. Yeah, we're chain.
- 1:12:35But they're like, some of them are really changing.
- 1:12:37So we stopped and Mary, and we pulled from the prison and I get
- 1:12:43out they get and they say he's come here.
- 1:12:46They uncaf me and shackle me and they said, okay, and I'm
- 1:12:49standing I'm like, Wow, and his son, it was the first day of
- 1:12:51summer, can't imagine. I'm like I can't bummer a year.
- 1:12:54You haven't been out in the sun and all of a sudden, a minivan
- 1:12:57pulls up and it's a guy, which scared me to death because how,
- 1:13:00he drove that little distance on the wrong side of the road
- 1:13:03going, 40 miles an hour, when it should've been 15, and we go
- 1:13:06across to the prison and we get to get out.
- 1:13:08And I get out and out in front. There's like six or seven guys
- 1:13:11who turned themselves in that day.
- 1:13:13Bleating surrendered, right? They got to drive it.
- 1:13:15It's like a guy came in when I was there the second time and he
- 1:13:18said, I render Enterprise car Chicago and from down, he was
- 1:13:20there for Securities fraud and he said, I stopped Enterprise.
- 1:13:24And this young man comes that's going to help you study law.
- 1:13:26He goes, you just work. And I take you and he goes, I
- 1:13:28need to go to prison cause what prison he goes.
- 1:13:30There's like twenty two hundred men down and his kid was like he
- 1:13:33was still writing killing me because this kid was scared to
- 1:13:35death isn't funny story. So I walk in in this is where I
- 1:13:39won't get emotional because I've had a chance to prepare for this
- 1:13:41but An Asian man. Who's an orderly for.
- 1:13:46The secretary looks at me and he goes your Hayes.
- 1:13:49And I said, yesterday he goes Cassidy wants to tell you
- 1:13:51everything's good. Now I admit your dad one time
- 1:13:57almost well 30-plus years. Sure.
- 1:14:00Yeah. In a driveway for 10 minutes and
- 1:14:04it was just like the world change and so they take in and
- 1:14:06they give you the stuff and I go down to them.
- 1:14:09To the dorm because I called marrying a bad summer camp.
- 1:14:12Yeah. And and he had already planned,
- 1:14:17and I had this great bunk in the right part of the area, against
- 1:14:20the wall and everything, I had all kinds of stuff and you'll
- 1:14:23don't realize what's tough. Is it set up everything set up
- 1:14:26for me and all of a sudden it's time to line up to go eat and so
- 1:14:32you know, they dismiss us and so I'm thinking okay, well at least
- 1:14:34I'll get childhood which the food there was very good and be
- 1:14:37because oh no Sean we're not going there.
- 1:14:39And so, we walked by, we walked all clear across.
- 1:14:41It went outside twice to the gym and there's a table and we had
- 1:14:46steaks and baked potatoes and it wasn't.
- 1:14:49He wasn't, you want salad dressing.
- 1:14:50You want Furniture? Do you want thousand?
- 1:14:52I don't even vinaigrette and we ate in the next night, we went
- 1:14:55over, we had steak fajitas, because in the states, they
- 1:14:57didn't you feed us at night like King and by this was all
- 1:15:00prepared by inmates. And I, your dad could not have
- 1:15:05been more gracious he gave we shared, we must have walked A
- 1:15:09thousand miles in the months. We were there and had so many
- 1:15:13things in common. He loves you and your daughters
- 1:15:17in your brother morning, anything the world.
- 1:15:20And finally, after we both end up in school, I'm going for a
- 1:15:23reason. He just broke down one day and
- 1:15:25just told me everything and he just he was so brokenhearted and
- 1:15:32I know he just wanted you all to know how much he loved you and
- 1:15:35how sorry he was, but he was a wonderful man and we had a ton
- 1:15:39of fun together. I can't imagine the two of you
- 1:15:42because eventually, I think he shared, space bunk bed and you
- 1:15:47know, two guys from there that are kind of conquered the world
- 1:15:50and there you were, well, after six weeks later, I said he was.
- 1:15:53Now, my guy is leaving Frey was his name, these sunbathe all day
- 1:15:57that was tracing, he said when Trey leaves you're moving over
- 1:16:00here and and and I I gave up position but not really.
- 1:16:03Yeah, I didn't care by then I'd figured it all out and we had a
- 1:16:06great time and we talk politics and religion.
- 1:16:09Yeah, fine. And you know, I think that's the
- 1:16:11thing that's really, you know, I had a couple of guys like that
- 1:16:15and that really does help your time.
- 1:16:17You know, you if you they call it your car, you know, the three
- 1:16:20or four people that you hang out with, but walking and sharing
- 1:16:24books, and being able to carry a conversation and talk feel like
- 1:16:29you is really what it is. You don't because that was
- 1:16:32always, my thought is I guess, more scared that I was going to
- 1:16:38lose me and going to prison. And the more you do what you and
- 1:16:41Dad did you were being yourselves.
- 1:16:44You were in prison, but you were talking to the world.
- 1:16:46And by the way, your dad was afraid of no one and you know
- 1:16:49what? Well, you didn't need to be in
- 1:16:50fear, there wasn't like, County jail but he'd had a few, he did
- 1:16:54onions. But in this story, I've never
- 1:16:56told anyone. Yeah.
- 1:16:57But so it's August. I'd been there for a couple
- 1:17:00months and I never TV because I don't watch TV and in want you
- 1:17:03to homes when I'm going to watch it there.
- 1:17:05And so, my nephew is in a golf tournament and he's in really
- 1:17:12good position and a TV. There are kind of owned by
- 1:17:18certain groups. As you know, if people put their
- 1:17:19pillows in a chair, if you ask what you're gonna sit in, you
- 1:17:23can't sit in somebody's face and I didn't want the aggravation,
- 1:17:25right? So, but all of a sudden it's,
- 1:17:29you know, it's set Sunday afternoon.
- 1:17:30It's about 4:00 Talk and it's something good.
- 1:17:33So I go down to the one TV that never leaves CNN.
- 1:17:36Now, there's like 20 of them because I go down there and your
- 1:17:39dad's right behind me because he loved Golf.
- 1:17:42And I said we're going to change TV and Douglas his nephews going
- 1:17:46to want a golf tournament right now.
- 1:17:47And we're changing TV and nobody's going to and I mean
- 1:17:49literally he just took interesting.
- 1:17:50Okay. Doug of course they're all 30
- 1:17:52years younger for sure. Yeah, and fifty pounds over G
- 1:17:55but we turn the TV on. We watching anyone.
- 1:17:58It was a wonderful thing. By that time we had like 30
- 1:18:00people, click cheering that Also, I've never seen golf, but
- 1:18:02it was fun and he just did those kind of things.
- 1:18:05He does wonderful. We ate breakfast, lunch and
- 1:18:07dinner together for eight months and then I met him in Pensacola.
- 1:18:12Yeah. And then you guys both went to
- 1:18:13Pensacola for the rdap program which as you explained it I
- 1:18:18think because there's a lot of different opinions on our tap, I
- 1:18:25have my own and I feel like there's there's some very good
- 1:18:28things that come out of it. Think that maybe it's rational
- 1:18:33behavioral thinking is what it is and You, I almost think you
- 1:18:39should teach in high school II. Said, Middle School?
- 1:18:41I could agree more. Yeah, it changed me in this
- 1:18:44regard. I've always been a fast thinker
- 1:18:46and it plays well, but now, you know, this term, I think about
- 1:18:48my thinking, I knew it just as fast.
- 1:18:50Sure. Then I'll think about it.
- 1:18:51Yeah. And it should be taught in
- 1:18:53middle school, high school because it's the only thing that
- 1:18:56I experienced in prison. That was of any value.
- 1:18:59Exactly. That's exactly.
- 1:19:00That was my point. It had all the things that has
- 1:19:05some value to it. Yeah, it does.
- 1:19:07And You know, it depends on who it's taught by, who the people
- 1:19:10are and all that and the how the program's run.
- 1:19:12It's pretty much like a cult that you get into with our debt
- 1:19:15but I didn't mind. It cult would be an
- 1:19:18understatement. Of course, your dad comes down
- 1:19:21and now then I'm the OG because I've been there for a month
- 1:19:24before he got here. Yeah.
- 1:19:25And and I first day I went on my.
- 1:19:27Oh my God. They got these chance to get
- 1:19:29their stuff and you can't do this.
- 1:19:31You can't do that. Yeah.
- 1:19:32This in your been to prison inside a prison.
- 1:19:34Well, and by the way, you know, we didn't know if it was a whale
- 1:19:36ever warn you. We never slept you slip on top
- 1:19:39of your bunk. Oh gosh.
- 1:19:40Yeah, you can and you can get in your sheets.
- 1:19:42Yeah, you get anything and I'm thinking I hear, I'm finally in
- 1:19:45the military and so that's it. But you mentioned something
- 1:19:49about my journey? Yeah, earlier, and we talked
- 1:19:52about about County jails with that.
- 1:19:53But and, and, and you have this in your jeans and it's in your
- 1:19:57blood and it's in your DNA as we would say today.
- 1:20:01I had a secretary in 1983, she work for the vice chairman but
- 1:20:06because I said outside of his office, I used her and you were
- 1:20:09always in trouble there, it was very volatile, the family
- 1:20:12business. I've been public companies and
- 1:20:13family business. Yeah.
- 1:20:15And in those days we had copiers the size of this room and I
- 1:20:20would go to the copy room at night because I had to prepare
- 1:20:22my own stuff. And Peggy came in one night and
- 1:20:24she was probably 16 17 shoshana. She was I want to tell you
- 1:20:26something. She goes.
- 1:20:28I've been here 40 years. and she said, I've seen people come and
- 1:20:33people go she goes you're going to be up in life and you're
- 1:20:35going to be down but your cream cream always Rises to the top
- 1:20:39and I felt that with me now for 39 years from when Peggy told me
- 1:20:43but the week before I was sitting this I got a letter from
- 1:20:46my older nephew only have two and it like six seven sentences
- 1:20:53but the Crux of it was Sean you've had an unbelievable rise
- 1:20:57and a lot of people love that you've had a horrific Vic fall
- 1:21:01and all kinds of people love that but you will be back.
- 1:21:04And that's what they really love.
- 1:21:06And I have that letter. I love that I carry around a
- 1:21:09text me in my car in a file. I have a picture on my phone but
- 1:21:11that's that's what it is. People people like a good
- 1:21:14comeback you know and he went through some tough tough times
- 1:21:20and Health crisis. You know you you're not only had
- 1:21:24issues with the family and that but you also had a Health
- 1:21:28crisis. What was that?
- 1:21:29Like and Listen. Well, by the way, there is no
- 1:21:32health care and in fact I just do we still meet with the
- 1:21:35dentist because you know, dental care, right?
- 1:21:37Nothing right. And but the only thing that
- 1:21:40saved me and almost we almost got to this point a story
- 1:21:43before. But I'll get you there quicker,
- 1:21:45I went back to Mary and the weight, my last four months, I
- 1:21:48didn't get out one hour early because of covid or anything
- 1:21:51like that. Forget what the newspaper says
- 1:21:52because their horrific lie, inaccurate and have been
- 1:21:54forever. But what I was in Marion, I
- 1:21:58spent 10 days in February and eight days.
- 1:21:59And March in the hospital. A lot of it intensive care and
- 1:22:02they took great care of me. Good people, they couldn't
- 1:22:04figure out what was wrong with me.
- 1:22:05But when I was back there in in February, the doctor and come
- 1:22:10back, the first of April and he said, he says, you know, you're
- 1:22:14really sick and I said, I know that by see, here's a deal.
- 1:22:17I said, if you don't let me out of here, they won't let me out
- 1:22:22of prison on May 5th. And so, he said, I'm going to
- 1:22:25let you out. He and I got out, and I took
- 1:22:28Life Soul. Slowing.
- 1:22:30Enough that it wasn't until Easter Sunday of 21.
- 1:22:33When I got home from church, and I went to go up the stairs, and
- 1:22:36I can barely make it in my then ex-wife called.
- 1:22:38Now ex-wife called me and became very compassionate said you
- 1:22:42sound like you're going to die and I said, I'm going to be JC
- 1:22:44in the morning at 9:00. I'm really sick.
- 1:22:46And I got their 904 and I stayed five days and I had lymphoma was
- 1:22:51back. I'd had it, literally 10 years
- 1:22:52before and by October. I'd beaten that But you don't
- 1:22:58have an immune system and I did that, and then about
- 1:23:02Thanksgiving of last year. I got an infection and finger
- 1:23:05and then it turning in ammonia. And I didn't realize it.
- 1:23:08You can die with pneumonia without it.
- 1:23:10Yeah. And I didn't, I didn't realize
- 1:23:11that immune system, but my friends said we in so many
- 1:23:15people, Don, and, and Jim and Geoff brought me food and stuff.
- 1:23:19I did all kinds of on it but the bottom line was they said Jeff.
- 1:23:22So I thought you were going to die.
- 1:23:24That's why I was so nice, you know, it's hitting me.
- 1:23:26But it was true. And then finally, I got last
- 1:23:30mark, this March and I said, I got to live and, and and I will
- 1:23:35live and, and in the meantime what that did for me and this is
- 1:23:39amazing one and I want to come back to people in second, but I
- 1:23:42started dictating my book on an iPad in February and, and I have
- 1:23:46a Ghost Rider. Who's written several successful
- 1:23:49books under his own name and ghost, written some great books.
- 1:23:52Then every Friday for two hours, we go through what I sent him
- 1:23:55and after almost Months of that, we had a book and but that time
- 1:24:00down I spent to do that and I slept and slept and slept but I
- 1:24:03would do that, but what I've learned in this I want to back
- 1:24:06up because that Thanksgiving a year ago I called a guy that I
- 1:24:12had seen at the airport a lot. See him at events in St.
- 1:24:14Louis Shep hyken. Hmm.
- 1:24:16Well, Shep hyken. Absolutely and we had paid him
- 1:24:19in the fall of 98 in October. We paid him, five thousand
- 1:24:22dollars. That's a cheapy wasn't to come
- 1:24:23out and speak to our group in Phoenix.
- 1:24:26Hmm. And he did a wonderful job and I
- 1:24:28knew his brother through the club we belong to and I would.
- 1:24:30But you know, we just were no, we're not friends, but we passed
- 1:24:33and I call shape up and he couldn't have been more
- 1:24:34gracious. And then I said, I'm going to do
- 1:24:37this. I said, and, and in 2015, right?
- 1:24:40When I am, sure, I got knew I was going to get indicted, I
- 1:24:42called a woman in Dallas and she said, Sean, write a book and you
- 1:24:45have a speaking career and I said, I'm not that interesting
- 1:24:48and by 18, I convinced myself, I've read a lot of those books.
- 1:24:51Yeah, might be, I might be interesting.
- 1:24:52Might be, I don't know that it is and you've been very gracious
- 1:24:55with your comments, but the point is, I knew I was going to
- 1:24:57do that. Yeah, and then I got out and I
- 1:24:59did was sick and then I got to that point where I could do it.
- 1:25:01Hmm. So a lot of my drive now is and
- 1:25:04I know you've done this because I followed you.
- 1:25:07You've got that gold out there and I can see the goal.
- 1:25:10And so I'm after the goal and it's the same a joke, I'm a
- 1:25:14shadow of my former self and not really.
- 1:25:16Yeah. And so I've had all these
- 1:25:18wonderful experiences and what I, what I say in my dedication
- 1:25:21to my book is, you know, I want you to experience a Highs but I
- 1:25:26hope, Hope Anyone who reads just never experienced at Lowe's, and
- 1:25:29then they learn from those things.
- 1:25:30But what I want to point, I want to make was way ship treated me.
- 1:25:36So many people have it's so many other people have just been
- 1:25:40whatever you want to put them on a car on it, I won't.
- 1:25:43Yeah. And the other thing is is how
- 1:25:44many people will say something to you and say, oh, I'm going to
- 1:25:48do this or that and I know they're not, they're just trying
- 1:25:50to in the moment. Try since I'm trying to get away
- 1:25:51from, I don't care. See, that's a beautiful thing
- 1:25:54about the role, even down the way.
- 1:25:55I used to think. All those things that used to be
- 1:25:58important to me, I don't even care about anymore.
- 1:26:00Yeah, and that's a lie in the most free, man, I'm happy.
- 1:26:04Yeah, I'm very content. I'm not complacent right there
- 1:26:07are things. I difference there's things I
- 1:26:09want. Absolutely, is there anything I
- 1:26:11need to know? Yeah, and and I just, I look at
- 1:26:14life so differently. I think that one of the
- 1:26:17unbelievably great things that can happen when you've gone and
- 1:26:21you've hit rock bottom and you felt it and you kind of find
- 1:26:25your soul when that happens because you know, a lot of
- 1:26:27people think hitting rock bottom.
- 1:26:29Is the end and I think hitting rock, bottom can be a new
- 1:26:31beginning to find your passion again, and I think what's What I
- 1:26:36get excited about with your story, Shawn is that you have
- 1:26:39been through such a journey and it's who you what is made you
- 1:26:43who you are? And now you're going to go out
- 1:26:45and share that with people and you're going to be able to help
- 1:26:47people. You're going to be, I've seen
- 1:26:49the the videos you sent me, your a great Storyteller and you're
- 1:26:52going to be able to help people that are in the big corporate
- 1:26:55office, or you're going to be able to help people, that are
- 1:26:57the startup guys that are looking for that.
- 1:26:59Push that confidence, whatever that is, that gets you through
- 1:27:02that up and around and over your fears.
- 1:27:05That's It's what you have, you have that ingredient and I want
- 1:27:09to ask you to kind of wrap this up.
- 1:27:12Bean and living from the boy, from there to where you are
- 1:27:19today. What do you think is your
- 1:27:21biggest takeaway to the listeners out there?
- 1:27:25I think it life is about perseverance, it's never give
- 1:27:28up. Never give up, and it's in, and
- 1:27:31I watched so many people in so many ways in life, with his
- 1:27:33little things are big things they give up and they are, they
- 1:27:36forget, they have a dreamer. They don't pursue it and just
- 1:27:40can't give up. And, by the Way in 2008-9 when I
- 1:27:44thought it couldn't get any worse.
- 1:27:46You know we would something good would happen.
- 1:27:48And what I'm saying go home right now, let's lock up because
- 1:27:50it can only get worse but his bad as you think it is one.
- 1:27:53It can't be worse than we can't be worse to and you can realize
- 1:27:57those worst fears is. I love that intro to your show,
- 1:27:59but at the end is if you don't quit, you're going to win.
- 1:28:03Yeah. And that's that's all I can say.
- 1:28:05And that is such a great. I mean, that what a great
- 1:28:07because that's how you've lived your life.
- 1:28:09And and if you don't quit, It, you will win because you'll keep
- 1:28:14stepping and whatever you step you get more confidence and when
- 1:28:17you get more confidence you find Solutions and then that gets you
- 1:28:20to the next step. Gray stuff.
- 1:28:23Sean. I really appreciate you coming
- 1:28:25in today. Sharing your story.
- 1:28:26I loved your book for those. It's February 7th, right?
- 1:28:31Yes, sir. For those looking for a speaker
- 1:28:33out there. This guy's got all that wisdom
- 1:28:38and he's willing to share it. So what's the best way to get
- 1:28:42ahold of you Sean because I know you got a new website Sean
- 1:28:45Hayes.com or Sean you spell it sha un yes sir I actually
- 1:28:51joking. Sometimes I'll get some other.
- 1:28:53How do you spoken about? You're going to be Shawna spells
- 1:28:55his name. Yeah, right.
- 1:28:56And I spoke Cassidy Riley and I the team made that mistake and
- 1:29:06and you can I don't know if you whenever you'll be able to
- 1:29:09pre-order but you'll want to check this book out talking
- 1:29:13about books. I've got one too, I'm your
- 1:29:15success. And you can pick it up at
- 1:29:18Amazon, Barnes & Noble Walmart. And everybody who loved the
- 1:29:25likes on social, follow the show to go down and hit those
- 1:29:29buttons. Either on Spotify you can hit
- 1:29:32the hit the Bell on Apple. You hit the little three dots in
- 1:29:36the corner there and it'll say follow, leave me a message
- 1:29:41broadcast e.com. I love that.
- 1:29:42Love to go back and forth with the listeners sharing back and
- 1:29:46forth and I do vo. I'm in 200 prisons.
- 1:29:51Now, just to the last last couple of weeks, I'm really
- 1:29:53excited about that. I'm going to start having in the
- 1:29:56show notes for you guys, to be able to contact me back and
- 1:29:59forth so we can have a conversation as I used to say,
- 1:30:04when I was writing my e-mails back and forth from Leavenworth.
- 1:30:07Stay strong. I'll do the same nightmare
- 1:30:09success in and out. Sean Hayes.
- 1:30:11Thank you. Thank you, Brian. last couple of
- 1:29:52weeks, I'm really excited about that.
- 1:29:55I'm going to start having in the show notes for you guys, to be
- 1:29:58able to contact me back and forth so we can have a
- 1:30:01conversation as I used to say, when I was writing my e-mails
- 1:30:05back and forth from Leavenworth. Stay strong.
- 1:30:08I'll do the same nightmare success in and out.
- 1:30:10Sean Hayes. Thank you.
- 1:30:12Thank you, Brian.