How I Built A Hundred Million Dollar Company

podcast series on the Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio. So today we're going to break down some myths, the theory that successful people just sort of glide through life and somehow have no obstacles and challenges and everything sweet right around in fancy cars, get on private jets, and you go to conference rooms and sign documents, and you go to the bank and cast a check and all this stuff. You spend money and you lounge all the time. Just not true. I mean, it might be true for the

children of successful people or the grandchildren. But by the way, there's an old saying. First generation makes it, second generation spends it, third generation loses it. It's a saying, but it's also very accurate. It holds up to scrutiny because the second generation, unless their first generation is very very careful and very thoughtful, the second generation has not been taught the skills and tools it needs to not just spend the money, but to make it. And then the

third generation just has no scruples at all. They're just spoiled and they absolutely lose it, literally lose it and lose it. So it's responsibility the first generation of hustlers with a purpose to make sure they pass down more than the money and pass down the knowledge. So I want to act like for a moment that you're my children, that you're my brothers and sisters, You're you're my family, and I want to give you the gift of insight.

I want to put you in the room right so as you're jogging or driving or listening or cooking or reflecting or whatever every do you do when you listen to podcasts, I want you to get into this and then pull out your pen and paper or your iPad or your iPhone, your note taking app. I want you to really indoctrinate yourself into this story of what happened when I built I've now I we my team has delivered about four point eight billion dollars of capital to

underserved neighborhoods. My enterprises overall, which is John O'Brien Holdings, I've created forty to fifty enterprises, three of the largest in their category in the country, the largest financial literacy organization in America Operation Hope. I'll break that down of how I built that in another podcast. The largest financial inclusion into the in America in the largest minority controlled owner of single family rental homes in America, and that

company recently sold. And that's part of the story of what I'm going to tell here. So the story begins. The story begins with a cautionary tale. I have a policy in my office don't ever do anything you don't want to see on the front page of the New York Times in five years. So because I run a high profile nonprofit organization in addition to for profit organizations, I deal with donor money, I deal with partner money. I deal with investors' money.

twice as honest. And because you're not getting a second chance. And so this unfairness, I didn't take it as a negative. I took it as a as a badge of honor that if I could, you know, follow all the rules and be keep my nose cre extremely clean and all that stuff, then I'm just gonna be a The haters gonna make me better. I'm just going to be a better businessman. And such has been the case, by the way, right, So all the dramas just made me made me a

better businessman, I believe. So the first thing I had to do is figure out because I was an entrepreneur that I founded a nonprofit organization, and then I had to you know, shed my reputation as an entrepreneur and really become this this nonprofit leader and be focused on that for twenty five years and really put my for profit business on the back burner. Even though my profits, the money originally that came from the nonprofit for the nonprofit came from my for profit business.

irs on yourtail. You will go to jail. That didn't get an alcohpoone for murdering mayhem, the guidm for tax evasion. Right, uh so, if you're black and brown, and like I said, people are going to be watching you. They're going to assume you're going to slip's going to screw up, and so don't don't. Don't give them the luxury of that. I'll deal with another video. I'll deal with how people tried to take me out several times. This is about how I did one hundred million dollars deal part time.

So I was looking for years about a business I could do that would not interrupt even though these are all my relationships and all my relationship capital and all the stuff I built. Use my personal relationships to build my philanthropy Operation Hope, and to make it the largest of its kind in the country, largest financial literacy culture

or organization in America, UH with the international reach. I wanted to make sure I had if I if I wanted to re emerge as an entrepreneur and as a businessman in that brand, that it did not in any way conflict with my nonprofit. So I couldn't. There's a whole bunch of stuff I couldn't do. I couldn't be a banker. I couldn't start a bank, compete with my partners as student. People say, oh, you should start a bank. Why would I do that and compete with my partners.

It's ridiculous. I should be a mortgage broker. No, I can't be a mortgage broker because because operations put people into homeowners homeownership. Can't be a finance broker. I couldn't be a finance seer. Uh.

and rent to own as an aspiracial platform. I want to own homes. I want to.

So I think, Okay, I'll do that. So I pursue that for several years and the answer was no, not no, no, Just like you know, I'd go to I talk, I'd go to my friends on Wall Street and raised this, particularly my friend Michael Arraghetti, who was the founder of a CEO of areas management, and I raised this and he was like, you just couldn't figure out how this would work. And it was the industry was too it was too early on, you know. In his opinion, this

was early two thousand, early twenty twelve. Maybe might I might start raising this maybe a twenty ten during the economic downturn, mortgage crisis, right, so in real estate was down. Also, It's like, well, why would you want to do it in this environment? But I knew real estate would rebound anyway. And we get to the crux of the story where it starts getting interesting. So at some point around twenty sixteen,

he said, yeah, this might work, John. So I went and found I didn't want to go, you know, build homes from scratch. I don't want to be a real estate developer. I didn't want to be a you know, a contractor. I wanted to use my skills, so I wanted to I'm a builder, a business builder, not a home builder. So I was like, well, let me go buy some assets, buy some single founder residential homes and run it like I would want to run that portfolio

of homes in my neighborhood. So I went to go try to buy a portfolio of homes a lot, and it takes you so much energy as to succeed big is to succeed small. So I wanted to succeed big, and so I went about trying to do this and to get an investor for this enterprise and make a long story short, the investor said, no, we're not interested.

the way, here's my philosophy for living. Talk without being offensive, listen without being defensive, and always leave even your adversary with their dignity because if you don't, that's spend the rest of their life working to make you miserable, it becomes personal. So step over mess and not in it. Always always leave even your adversary with their dignity right. And so I'm not going to talk about the people who who did me wrong, did me dirty, that was

in my neighborhood. I'm going to just commend the people who actually helped me build because the drama doesn't matter, right, those people weren't going to stop me. I take no for vitamins. So this guy, I know, I got him in my mind's eye. He sense apologized by the way, but he stood away from me doing what would have been a deal that would have if I had done that first deal, I mean, I'd have a company three times large and the company I actually ultimately ended up building.

see this as a theme over and over again. I had to not get emotional. If you listen to any of my content, you hear me say whenever you make an emotional decision is going to be a bad one. So I didn't, you know, I didn't get emotionally wound up about this guy. I was disappointed. I was frustrated, sad, but I was like, okay, you know, fine, next item.

So I just I never give up. By the way, Hank Aaron has a record for the most home runs, but he also has a record for the most strikeouts, because you cannot hit a ball you don't swing at. So I never give up. I'm unrelenting. I mean I am resilient, and I again I take note for vitamins, and I believe success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. And I never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,

ever ever ever give up, and neither shoit you. Only in the dictionary does the word success coming for the work work, because it's alphabetical so I'm about to no pun intended here, I'm about to give up, not give up, but you know the business I proposed. The answer was, no, you're gonna get nose. Don't focus on the nose. Don't focus on the ninety eight nos. Focus on the two yeses right, the knows don't matter. Success has a thousand mothers and fathers and failure as a bastard child. No

focus on the nose, focus on the yes. Nobody's going to remember your failures. So this guy caused his deal to flush. My friend was like, I'm sorry, I can't do anything unless he signed off on it, And so we went and had dinner and talked about other things.

Don't take it personal and don't make your benefactor feel like they owe you something or you're resentful, like you'll lose a friendship and you'll make it make them feel like you're only their friend because of what they can do for you, and you make them feel uncomfortable in the reality is nobody owes you anything but a shot,

just an opportunity. That's it, not an outcome. So I remember calling my friend Michael Raghetty back one day and saying, look, I'm tired of When I started Operation Hope, I did it with my own money. But because I've only been doing the opperation over now for two decades, I've stepped away from business and I have some passive assets, but there are not enough assets to cover how big Operation Hope has gotten when it needs payroll covered or whatever.

And I write, over twenty thirty years, I've written checks to operation over half a dozen times or more. Give it to my chief of staff racial and said, hold this in case, you know, the donor money doesn't come in. I'll cover payroll again. I'll cover the operationial story in another podcast another time. So it's like Michael, I need to be able to cover Operation Hope in case it can't make payroll and it's just too big now or whatever it's needs are. I don't want to go begging

the donors all the time. I want to be able to reach in my own pocket and pull out of assets and cover myself. So the big deal didn't work, that's fine, can we do? You know, I'm just going to go buy one hundred homes, which was much smaller than the two thousand homes I was targeting. Right, And I've always been a big dreamer, and so one hundred homes seemed like a really small deal comparison to the two thousand homes that he just said no to, or his colleagues said no to.

Deutsche Bank guards Steel. Try to see how all these pieces come together here in a minute, I called John Bartley, and John Bartlay I told my vision and the details here don't matter. John and I had this relationship and John thought this was a good idea. But I couldn't I needed financing I needed and John couldn't, you know, give me the homes.

Back then, you could buy a home for less than one hundred thousand dollars in the Atlanta market that I was going to buy these homes Atlanta in North Florida, so I could be around, I could get to the assets myself to manage them if I needed to, and I need to do something again, it was time because I was really the CEO of Operation Hopeful time. So so in an institutional real estate space, this was a small investment. Again, I know this doesn't people are listening

to this. They're trying to buy one to two homes, which is one home. Don't own eight home or think they want to buy five homes. I'm saying, I'm really saying something is crazy. But I have friends that own twenty thousand, fifty thousand, eighty thousand homes. I'm sorry. They run institutions that do I know people who own you know, thirty thousand apartment building units, one hundred thousand apartment building units.

So it's called institutional investment. It's Wall Street. So anyway, this was a very small target, you know, fifty to one hundred homes. I just wanted something that was I called a pocketbook asset that I could basically fit in my pocketbook and I could put it out in case I needed to bankroll my nonprofit, cover it myself versus begging somebody. I believe in that James Brown version of affirmative action, open a door where I get it my dang self. So fast forward. I'm trying to work this out,

trying to find the portfolio. And I found the portfolio. I've gotten the money now from Michael, I'm about to do the deal. So I get on the plane now my Operation Hope hat is on and I'm flying to LA to meet with a friend, a guy who became a friend who I met through Michael Raghetty. He was Tony Wrestler, who is chairman of Arias Management, co founder of ARIS, co founder of Apollo baller, good guy, and for the sake of this conversation, just so you put

him in a bucket. I guess a billionaire now probably won't be saying this, but it's public record. Michael and Tony are billionaires at this point. But back in that at that time, Tony Resterer was, you know, the billionaire. And I had never done with asess business with a billionaire before. I knew a few, but didn't do business with him. So I flew to Los Angeles trying to get this guy to be a donor the Operation Hope. Now, don't laugh, but this is a very important lesson here.

I flew to LA to try to get Tony Wrestler this is twenty sixteen ish to be a twenty five thousand dollars donor annual donor to Operation Hope. It wasn't about the money. It was about I wanted him to be part of this family, but I also wanted his money, and so I flew there. Been cultivating him for a while, I got an appointment. I flew there and I'm sitting in his office and he says, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll give you the twenty.

I'm you know, single family residential rental homes. I'm gonna get people a chance to.

than it is to do business. I went there, I'd been talking to this guy for six months, a year, whatever, it was trying to get twenty five grand, and when the right business idea came up for two point five million, basically ten times that amount, go round it up to three million. He was in in a minute and a half when he thought this, Yeah, this is doing well and doing good.

In fact, I know he does. He's a mathematical genius. He's he's a he's a savant, he's operational excellence. He's his skill is building and running organizations. And Tony skill is he's a dreamer times a million, and he's got you know, uh, visionary courage just to say yes to stuff even though the details aren't there. Michael needs the details there and it works. These guys work very well together because they stay out of each other's way and they know what each other's strength is.

Why do three million, we can do thirty million? Actually, why do thirty million? We can do one hundred and thirty million. We're in for one hundred and thirty million. Now, mind you, I had if I was driving a car, would a run into something. But I just had to stay cool, you like, it's just no drama. Chill, don't get too excited, you know. Frankly, I had to make sure I heard what I thought I heard first of all, Like they we're gonna do one hundred million of debt

and thirty million in equity. Would listen to one hundred and thirty million dollars. Let you grow the company and then we'll figure out a way to institutionalize it after that, mind you. I started out with this grand vision and I got shot down multiple times right all these games

being played. But once I got to the principles the real players directly and I accepted a much more modest investment, much much more modest, mean micro modest in comparison to what I originally was looking after it, and I didn't get an attitude about it.

and I can't there's something that I can't say. But Tony introduced me to his bankers, and i'll give credit here. It was City National Bank in this particular example, and they gave me a credit line I'm sure guaranteed by Tony, although no one told me that. And somehow I got hooked up with Freddie Mac and I got a letter which I'm gonna frame this letter. I got a letter committing tuned in fifty million dollars to me from Freddie Mac.

I gotta figure. I gotta figure about how I got hooked up with Freddie Mack because it wasn't tied to Michael or Tony. It was on my own, my own efforts. They were like, oh, this is a great business idea, we'll put up tow it in fifty million dollars to support you. And I'm so glad I didn't take that commitment that would have made me go bank up because well, interest rates went the wrong direction. First of all, for me,

as I recall, that wasn't the biggest problem. The biggest problem was there was a huge pre payment penalty that that would have made this deal. I couldn't. I got into it. I basically couldn't get out of it, you know. And I ended up taking down about thirty five million of that two undred and fifty million from Freddie mac and could could barely afford that. And when I close the steal, you'll hear this in a second. So when I get this commitment from Tony and Michael, I don't

I don't want them to transfer any money yet. I don't want the money. I want the venture to have the money. Right, So I go and find my first group of homes to buy and check them out, go look at them myself, get them, you know, go kick the you know dirt, look at them, review them, inspect them. I went personally to inspect the number of these homes. He couldn't expect all of them. It was a lot

of homes. And I remember I was buying homes at fifty homes, seventy five homes, one hundred homes at a time building this business and across the country, and there were some sketchy transactions. There was some sketchy sellers of homes. There was times where I had to pull a ten million out of sec line of credit out of my out of nowhere.

you the short version of this. So I started accumulating these portfolios, and I had to sign hundreds of documents because each one of these homes you had to sign mortgage documents and lending documents and ESCRO documents. And I'd be in the city traveling and I just I would ask somebody, can I use your conference room? And you know, a delivery truck would show up with boxes and documents and I'd sit there and have literally I've got photos

of me signing these documents in these different offices. So let me fast forward here. So I told you about that. I got this Freddy mc commitment for twenty fifty million dollars and the prepayment penalty em the money was like no, actually, interest rates went down, that's.

in a minute, because it comes back. It comes back to me. So I go and buy these homes, I accumulate this portfolio, I hire staff, I do. I decided a contract model where I'm going to contract for my chief financial officer, for my auditor, for my property manager, all that stuff. I wanted to contract out and in order to be efficient and grow the company quickly, and not have all this infrastructure. And so I had like six or eight employees running a huge corporation, and I

got the occupancy up to an institutional quality. I had institutional quality auditors and all that stuff.

So this one person that they made sure who oversee everything from the side was his attorney named Monica Shilling.

they're the money. You own the majority of the shares, but you have a different kind of share structure. Then they do. Their share structure gives them rights and privileges yours don't because they are the money and the money makes the rules. Please everybody remember this. Don't get upset with the money. The money.

I had the highest costs. It was the highest cost for everything because it was not internalized. It was externalized property management, externalized auditor expert.

feed like everybody else free financial literacy free. I mean of you, if you paid rent on time, I'd give you discounts if you raise your credit score at lower your rent ten percent, if you kept rent your credit score above seven hundred, I see, I walk my talk. I give you a chance to go for rent to own. Which is why the Better Government liked me and Freddie Meck like my model because I was giving people a shot in ownership where other companies were not really focused

on that. They're just focusing on renting properties. So I had a social impact investment model. Didn't understand that's what my gold mind was. By the way, this was just who I am. It's how I run a business. So initially this was a negative. It was perceived please hear me. This was perceived to be a huge negative me doing this. Wallstreet was like this guy spending all this money on all these ancillarity services, He's not efficient in his operations.

So when the book went out to Wall Street players, it was rather embarrassing to me because it was sent out to I don't know ninety companies on Wall Street.

he was. He knew he was he was trying to squeeze me. Well, he knew he was squeezing me. But he told me that his people would analyze the portfolio and came back and he's this, without question, it's worth It's only worth ninety million. He didn't think I was going to do my own appraisal. I was just going to take this word for it. So we did our own desk appraisal of the portfolio, and well, let's just say the value was significantly higher than he was proposing.

basically break even, I would have gotten. I had two and fifty cents when the deal closed, because I was willing to. I had to pay them attorneys a million dollars almost I had to pay the bankers a half million to a million dollars. I mean, I might have end up owing money with a deal closed. Yes, you pay bankers and attorneys five hundred thousand million dollars into a deal that side without question. So I said, you know,

I've got a better vision for this. And I went into to my partners and said I'd like to pursue my idea. And my partners were like, and again some things I just can't tell you. My partners, for reasons that are personal of them, said yes, you go pursue this, John, And if you can sell this company within the year, you know, you pay us our return, but the company's assets you own it, you know, And which was an

extraordinary offer. They were basically giving up all their ownership if I was able to find a buyer within a year's period of time for the company. And that that

was very generous of them. It got my attention, and so I called the CEO of a bank and said you know, I think that this company I created might qualify under the community we investment in and he's and I explained the company to him and how I structured it, the financial literacy and the rent to own and all these different things doing different from everybody else, which people have seen as a cost up until now as a negative.

And this banker was like, yes, I think you're right, John, I think this does qualify in the Community Reinvestment Act and other government compliance statutes that banks have to comply with. This is a fabulous investment and it's for profits. You've you know, you structured it really well. They're doing well and doing good. Congratulations. Can I invest in it? In fact, he said, I'd buy it if you're in my area, but you're not in my area. Can I invest in it?

But maybe equity would have cost if you're a big, huge Wall Street player, you're a Blackstone or black Rock or whoever your KKR maybe which back then would have cost them four percent Now equity would cost you seven, eight, ten, twelve percent today, depending on who you are.

more than fifteen trillion dollars. It's a lot of money and it's forty five hundred banks, and I tapped for the first time an FDIC insured bank to do investment in this category. I created basically a new capital stack, a new way of structuring capital for this kind of investment vehicle. And I've done it because of my reputation, my brand, because of how it operated. This business to for whom everybody else saw was a throwaway, a risk, stupid.

They thought it was again. I'd already gone to market one time and it was told this this doggedne hunt.

cost to him. Two ways to make money make more spend less so versus jamming my tenants up for huge rent increases, I was benefiting by giving them affordable rents, which then also allowed me to apply for low cost debt and equity I hope this is making sense to you. Not play the tape back slowly and it'll slowly make sense to you over time. You know somebody who's banking. Have him explained. There's only so much I can break this down our podcast. But you're really smart, you'll get it.

You'll get it enough. So to make a long story shorter, I did this twice. I borrow the money. And by the way, I'll tell you this to do with a credit card, you get a credit card. I did this myself at a secure credit card when I was eighteen years old. I was homeless, three hundred dollars limit secured by a three hundred dollars deposit at the bank. Because my credit was toe up from the flow up. I was homeless and I didn't have a good credit. I

had bad credit. It was it four hundreds or five hundreds. It was horrible, so no one would loan me any money. So I got a secure credit card for three hundred bucks and I paid twenty five dollars a month minimum payment. And then after a few times, I so I run the credit card up to three hundred. I'd pay it down to one hundred. Credit running up to three to two hundred and fifty. We had a three dollar limit. Pay it down to fifty dollars, running up to three

hundred dollars, pay it down to ten dollars. You know, it just showed that I had the capacity to charge and pay. And then ultimately they gave me an unsecured credit card, and now I have a Meer Express Black Card, amongst others, which has no limit on it. Technically, in this specifically particular example, I did the same thing. I got that investment for two percent, paid it off before it was due, well before it was due. I had a ten year term. I paid it off within a year.

I wanted to prove I could take the money in and pay it off. This was a few million dollars they loaded.

we're reinvesting in the neighborhoods and communities. Half of all my vendors minorities and women. I was in financial literacy for residents and Wall Street Journal had written me up for an article where I'd gone take people from rent to own my home paper. The AJC had written us up. Freddie Mack had written us up in a policy paper meaning a white paper, meaning they used as an example of this is exactly why, this is exactly how we

want these companies that are institutional quality. They're investing in these neighborhoods to operate, or they're doing well and doing good at the same time, not just raising rents on people and writing and I give them a shot to own so and so forth. So we became the poster child for good behavior on Wall Street in this sector. And I owned about seven hundred homes just under that at that point. And I went back to market and got several offers, very good offers above one hundred million.

And I knew the properties were worth at that point in one hundred and fifty million ish. I didn't know. I had a gut feeling, but I promised Tony and

Michael I'd get them out within five years. And we were at that five year mark, and I had two great offers and a number that I thought was fair, and I took one of those offers and paid off all of my debt, all of my equity, gave my investors their return plus their interest, didn't ask for a discount, didn't ask a hookup, didn't ask for well, you know, an Ata boy. I met my commitment and I kept

them just like I was willing to do. When I would have been dead broke and having paid off all that money and been basically in even stevens so to speak, maybe even in the hole. By the way, I would have been negative as I mentioned earlier, and that the deal closing was painful. I can't go into details of the deal closing, but it was. It was painful, but we got through it, and we honored all of our commitments to the investors. I made a commitment to Operation Hope.

Was able to take some of the money that I made in the for profit and hook up and help my people on the nonprofit side of my life who don't get bonuses, who don't have stock options because a nonprofit is owned by the public technically, even though the founders owned by the public.

I've mentioned John Bartling a couple of times, but the people who were behind the scene. Mahesh, my god, Mahesh was unbelievable and I'm like, I say this name properly. His last name, Mahesh shrin of us Vasan shrin of us On s r I N I v A s A n shrend shrining Busson. So see that prop say that properly he was. He was an investment banking, corporate securities.

Just a jewel of a guy. Uh and another guy who worked on the HESH side by side to get this deal done was Shaffing for Tah Shaffing t f A T t A H. And they just were just honorable through and through and again. Monica Shilling, the the attorney was there from from start to finish, and and everybody discounted their fees when they saw that I was giving back to my philanthropy and I wasn't getting everything I wanted and in the deal. By the way, if you if you do a deal and you're ecstatic, then

the person is miserable, it's not a good deal. If you do a deal where everybody's slightly irritated, it's probably a good deal. A good deal is where everybody's slightly irritated but basically pleased. If one person's excited, the other person's miserable, it's not a great deal because somebody won and somebody absolutely got thrashed. You want win win, not win lose and a good negotiation again is what everybody is slightly just slightly irritated about the transaction, and it's like,

you know, I kind of got more of that. We clearly I left money on the table for a number of reasons, but you know, I was happy with the transaction. I was able to meet my commitments. I built something that the Black Enterprise says was the largest acts as the capital deal outside of entertainment in sports for a

black man in the capital markets on Wall Street. In other words, I got to tune it, meaning not a credit facility from Bearings, which is an institutional provider of capital, a credit line basically to recapitalize this company when I sold it, because I stayed on as an investor. I stayed on as an owner of the new company, even though it was passive. I'd sold the company to someone else, which is a whole of experience. You know, is your baby, and you gotta learn that you don't control it anymore.

And so I sold it in Christmas Eve twenty twenty one, and I went through to Taco Bell and got a got a number one, number one or number three whatever the hard shell tacos are with the Taco Supreme with a with a coke.

lesson about letting go. I've had other businesses to distract my attention, thank god, but on that one, I had a you know, things were not going to be done exactly the way I wanted them done anymore. I could have influence, but I didn't have power. And over time, I've let going more and more of it because again I'm not the I'm not the principal owner, and I've got other things that you know, they're they're excited me, and that's all good, and wish them well with that.

But I was able to build something very substantial and I'm very proud of it. And I just sent a note to Tony and Michael recently and said, you know, I know this was not your intention. But another friend of ours is Michael Milkin who financed Reggie Lewis. Reginald Lewis the first man to do a billion dollar deal on Wall Street Beatrice International McCall pattern company before that.

I believe Beatri's International nine hundred and fifty billion, I think it was in nineteen eighty five or something like crazy unbelievable in that year. And for that to be for that to be done, and Michael milkon backed them when nobody else would. People said that that that they wouldn't finance Reggie Lewis. What Michael Milton says, what he's

got my backing and financing. And I said, it's sad to say this, but outside of of what you see these big construction companies, and there are real estate developers like Don Peeple's and there's a russ Hermon and Russell legacy. The Russell family runs that. Now that's you know, it's a different business, uh uh. And I'm not gonna get

in their business model. But it's really substantial, really really well done, and they're they're much larger than me in their areas, right, But it's but outside of like entertainment, like a B. E. T deal or our essence, Well, no that we don't know if the numbers were around essence. But it's so few deals by black entrepreneurs. You can you can count me, you can count them on one hand. But outside of here's a great eg Smith, a great example.

Robert Smith is an example in my laying because he's in finands and he's built, you know, a billion dollars multipillion dollar enterprise. But outside of Robert Smith, in my space, this was the largest acts of the capital deal which I did part time for a black man to pull the lever on, to clip a coupon.

not generational headaches. And you go find enough the North Pole end of South Folks who built Blockbusters should have sold it to Netflix now and they would bankrupt. You see if people at Sears, people Kmart, people put code. I mean all these companies just just stayed the party too long. A hunder the conversation. Other time we're at the end of this podcast. I hope you've enjoyed this beyond the fact you got to know when to exit, when to walk office, to drop the mic and walk

off the stage. I think the issue was that, uh,

this is a lot. This was you know, me getting a twoity million dollar credit facility from one lender one hundred million dollars to another non recourse debt, which means it wasn't personally guaranteed, just on the credibility of the enterprise to build a company from zero to market into you know, assets of you know again without getting details who worth over one hundred and fifty million dollars and within without any government assistance, without need, without any hookups,

without need in front of action, without need subsidies, just just doing straight business and really operationalizing the financial literacy that I've been teaching and preaching at Operation Hope, really walking the talk. And by the way, Frederick Douglass, who everybody knows being abolition in the eighteen hundreds, was also a businessman later on in his life. If he got his freedom and was and did all his stuff and ran newspapers whatever, he also owned real estate that'd be

worse today, about six million dollars in Baltimore, Maryland. And there's a plaque up on the wall of the real estate. If you're in Baltimore, go check it out, a historical plaque that shows where he owned that real estate that gave him financial freedom. He also owned a huge real estate in Anacostia that is a National Historic site today you can go check out. So he was a businessman civil rights, not just civil rights. So it is entirely

as possible. A friend of mine, who is a CEO of Key Bank, told me once Chris Gorman is his name, CEO of Key Bank, one of the partners of Operation, told me once that it is entirely possible that the only.

and opportunity. Access the opportunity at scale. I agree to that acts as the capital low interest rate because you've got good credit and good credibility and access to the opportunity at scale just might be social I call it social justice through an economic lens. I call it silver rights from civil rights in the streets to pursuing silver rights in the c suites and the business suites. Right, So this is just a new era and a new time, and it takes new skills to operate the new in

different ways. And for all the people who I didn't think, who are there with me on the journey, I apologize if I didn't mention your name, Please no blame it on my head.

owner of the company, my partner basically to win. I want I've always wanted my partners to win more than me. It's really important to me that my partners say that was a good investment. I did that with John, and I made money, I built wealth. It was I felt good about it. It ended well because you can go back to that. Well again, you can go back. It's not it's not a transaction, it's a relationship. A transaction

is a getting business. Relationship is a giving business. And and uh, the new owner of the company, Uh, I'm sure will do well because in part of how of that, I stopped haggling over every dollar at the closing table and made sure there was enough room for him to have a lot of running room. I don't I don't

have the right to mention his name. But the new owner of the of the Promise Homes company, who's a good guy, by the way, the owner, the guy who put the money is a nice man, uh from South Africa, et cetera.

part of it. Was like, man, maybe I should just kept this company and pay Michael and Tony off and just you know, just moved it forward myself and kept all this money for myself.

hear or what was appropriate to say. But hopefully you got a sense of here that this was a grind. This was not easy. That I had to take no provitamins. I had to find encouragement every day. I had to not take things personal. I had to step over messing not in it. I had to never give up. I had to be respectful and honorable to my partners. I had to treat other people's money like it was my own.

No limos, no private jets, none of that. No flossing, No diamonds, No going to take somebody else's money and going use it for stupid stuff. Be efficient, and then right when the chips are down, right when everybody's about to count you out, look for the rainbow after the storm. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm.

It just doesn't happen that a black man gets a check for a couple hundred million dollars or a lending facility for a couple hundred million dollars on non recourse investment for something that he owns now that he's managing he owns. It just doesn't happen every day. Unfortunately, we hope that that that in ten years is commonplace. But this was pretty pioneering and I want to thank them and everybody involved for making it happen and seeing it through.

It's in the color of us currency. Let me know what you think about this podcast. Tell your friends, subscribe, Share, Let's go change the world together. Go to Operation Hope. Become a member of the eighteen sixty five project. Get my book Financial Literacy for All should have said that earlier as a bestseller. Give it to a friend if you already bought a copy, and donate one into your family's name, to a library or a title I school.