John's Dad: The Story of Johnnie Will Smith

Mississippi in eighteen seventy one. The Civil War was over in eighteen sixty five, they weren't passing out memos saying you're free. So it's at least fifty percent likely that RB Smith was born in the slavery in Mississippi. At the very least. I know he was a sharecropper in Mississippi and ultimately the farm that he owned, a small cropper land that he worked in Mississippi was worth seven hundred dollars, you know, as we went into the twentieth century.

So he worked at land for thirty plus years, well at least twenty years, and you know, ended up with a seven hundred dollars asset that he might not have actually owned because he was a sharecropper, but the legacy of him and self determination led to my father, who was born in Aberdeen, Mississippi, population now about five thousand people and unfortunately declining. There's no industry there. Little town

in Mississippi. And by the way, just fun fact here, some of the notable citizens of Aberdeen, Mississippi are James Phelan, Senior and Junior. James was a member of the Confederate Congress, the folks who are fighting to sustain slavery in the eighteen hundreds. He was a member of the Confederate Congress Congress, and then his son went on to become a member of the US Congress right after that. I can't imagine that there was some kind of a deathbed conversion between

Senior and Junior is members of Congress. So my guess is that this legacy of Confederate philosophy carried on for quite some time, as both of these folks were members of Congress from Aberdeen. So that was an example of maybe Mississippi not being the most progressive. But my dad left there and because of my grandfather being a sharecropper, he became a businessman, and of course I became an entrepreneur. Hello, we are all role modeling, right, We're modeling what we see.

And as an old Southern saying, no matter how much I love you, so my daughter, my son, and my daughter, if I don't have wisdom, I can only give you my own ignorance out of love. We passed down bad habits and generation to generation. And you know there's another there's a biblical story fable that basically paraphrases, watch how you live your life, and maybe the only Bible that anybody else reads. So role models matter, right, And I'm

an entrepreneur because my dad was a businessman. My dad was a businessman in part because he saw his dad pursuing self determination in the eighteen hundreds. And certainly my great grandfather was a slave, without questioning. So Johnny Smith, you know, was a great man. He's passed on to glory, but he had challenges, he had drama, he had you know, he would shoot himself in the proverbial foot because Massa Andrew Jung says that men and women fail for three

reasons arrogance, pride, and greed. My daddy was not greedy, but he was full of pride and slightly arrogant. I understand some of it. He was successful, as you know. That story goes he met my mother because he was driving his fancy car from Los Angeles where he lived down south. I don't know the exact pathway, but for some reason, he came through East Saint Louis, I guess to visit family, friends, whatever, on his way to Detroit

to go buy a new car. Back in the day, you bought cars if you were if you were highly successful like that, you wanted to go I guess to the manufacturer and buy it off the showroom floor in the manufacturer. I guess it was a thing, and he would drive the car back to Los Angeles. It was his way of showing his success. So on the way to buy his car and Detroit, he stopped in East Saint Louis and he was hit overhead with the love

jones of my mother. He saw my mother and lost his mind, and the rest of that story, we say, is history. I did a separate podcast on my mother, so you can go listen to that and see how they came together and how their stories grew and then departed from each other. So he met my mother lost his mind. But the good news is they moved to the Los Angeles and they had me little known story. My birth certificate has three aliases on it because my dad kept thinking that I wasn't my mother's that he

wasn't the father of my mother's child. He thought I was too young. This is who's this little yellow boy? My dad was darker. So who's this yellow boy? Who who you've been hanging out with? This is not my This is not my son. It looks like a Hispanic kid or whatever. Right, And so then my mother wanted to name him, name me Brian Keith after an actor. I'm told he's a Who's Brian Keith? I want my name,

my son to be named Johnny Smith. There's not a more unimaginative, unimaginative name on the planet than Johnny Smith or John Smith. He wanted me to name John Smith. My mother's like, oh, not old, my dead body, are you naming our kid John Smith? So I had They changed my birth certificate three different times in the hospital the same day. Of course my mother won. Uh, So I ended up being John Bryant. The rest is history, as they say. So my dad went on to own

a to start a Semen. Sorry, he already had a cemen contracting business in south central Los Angeles. Again, he was he was a computer. He was a community baller. I mean he was successful, highly successful by community famous standards. Right. The stories of my dad are legend. He wore these flashy suits with big collars, and he loved his brim and his hats, and he loved his fancy shoes. He looked like he looked like a pet. I mean, I'm just gonna say a classy pet. But he looked like

a pip. Uh. Now, listeners, you need to translate, translate what a pep is. I guess he's put you know, leave me a commentat or something out or just ask a black friend. Right. So dad was a slick He was smooth, right, he was a smooth talker. And uh but my dad didn't know what he didn't though, So when my dad was going to go talk to just get money, he'd go. He thought the bank was the branch, like he thought that Bank of America or Wells Fargo.

He thought that entire bank was representative of this branch. And he knew the branch manager. And when he was gonna, you know, write a check that wouldn't cover that couldn't be covered the money had in the bank. He thought his real credibility was going out of the bank. His time was less valuable than you know, other things. My time is the most valuable thing I have. You give me a choice today between more time and more money. As it give me more time, I'll make more money.

But my dad value other things. So he would go down to the bank several times a week to let the branch manager know that he would not be you know, he needed him to cover this check. And this is what we did in the community. And this is what he did in the community was of common conversationation floating checks. Some of you listening who are old enough to know what I'm talking about, understand it was floating checks was a common situation, and that banker, as long as my

dad knew the branch manager. It was the personal credibility he had with that banker that allowed him to feel that he had basically a line of credit. He didn't because he had bank fees. Every time he did that, they hit him with a bank fee over his head.

But my dad valued respect over everything. So if a mortgage broker showed up in my neighborhood as an example, who was polite and talk and gave my dad respect and consideration and asked him about his family and complimented him on how he was dressing and all this stuff. But he was. But what he had to offer for a refinance for the house was a broker, meaning didn't go directly to the financial source. It was through a

financial broker, which added additional fee. It was a broker transaction that was let's say fifteen percent interest and fifteen points meaning one percent, two percent, three percent, fifteen percent of the loan amount, right, fifteen points fifteen percent interests. You know, some of these these loans were twenty points twenty percent interest. When you once it got loan, you got the loan, you would blind twenty twenty went to zero zero. But this was common in our neighbor hard

money loans. So my my dad would take that loan because the guy was nice to him. Look, but if somebody came along was rude to my dad but had a three percent mortgage, he would send that guy packing. Hey, I'm just the opposite, right, you can curse me out, you can say everything you want, you can say you're a first cousin of James Felan from Alberdeen, Mississippi. And you your great great grandfather was part of the Confederacy. But if you got three percent money, I'm taking it.

Not went out to my self esteem of self worth depends on your acceptance of me, right, Yeah, it's okay. If you don't like me, I like me, right or do you respect me and learn to like me, then like me and never respect me. So I went out emotional about money. I'm not emotional about business. Business is just business. But my dad, you know, respect went a long way with my dad. I'll come back to why that's so important in a moment. So my dad was, you know, in many ways, not only just a community

success story. He was a bit of a you know, original freedom fighter in our family because he served as a deacon on the board of the church. It was a cavalry missionary Baptist church. I can't remember the reverend's name is probably good but his whole family, you know, owned the church. I mean literally owned the building and it was only like forty members in the pasta. The pasta was driven up in a limousine. The limousine was longer than the church was wide and my dad was

a deacon in the church. And my dad wasn't really feeling all this stuff that the family of the pastor and his family were doing. But he was committed to the gospel, committed to God and and but when he discovered that there was fraud going on with the pastor, he approached him in church and the son of the now my dad, dad was a big guy. He was a construction guy. You on the construction cement masonry company johnny'son Network. It's a big guy. But you know, he

was an older guy. He was shorter, stocky, and the son of the pastor was big and tall, and he clocked my dad to keep my dad from from spilling the beans on the you know, malfeasans going on to the church. He hit my dad and I believe knocked him out. Uh. And that wasn't the that wasn't the last time, because my dad wouldn't give up. You wouldn't give up, wouldn't give in. He was like, no, this is unethical, this is illegal. You can't do this in

the house of Lord. So he was going to file formal charges and he was out of a construction site and this son showed up to the construction site. They had a fight. My dad had built it, dug a hole, a construction hole for something, and the guy ended up actually pushing my dad in that hole and filling that hole up with sayd up to my dad's neck. He was trying to kill my father, and luckily, you know,

authorities and people interceded. But but, but by the grace of God, that moment could have been my dad's last. But he just wouldn't He just wouldn't ge give up or wouldn't give in. He fought for justice and not just us, and he and my mother ultimately built a little conglomerate, a little empire in south central LA. They've owned their own home on Santa Barbara Boulevard is now Martin the King Boulevard, west of western south side of the street. They owned an eight unit apartment building they

owned which they bought for eighteen thousand dollars. I believe it will be worth several million dollars today. We owned a gas station at Veringdon in Normandy, I believe Southeast Corner. We owned the scenic contracting business. We owned a nursery business which my mother ran, and I was the first client. My mother pimped me. I mean, I mean leverage me as a client to get other clients. I was the marketing agent. Look well, I was treating my son. You

need to come and be client too. It was all good, It's fine. My mother, my mother's was brilliant at managing money and building. As my dad was mister outside. She was missed inside. And a relationship is the only time the mass shouldn't work. Two plus two should equal more than four. The two plus who does not make equals six, eight or ten? What are you doing? Right? Yeah? Better together? What are you doing? Uh? So we own all this stuff. But when my dad was financially I literate, right, So

my dad didn't understand money. He thought that that cash flow was everything. So he go bid on a job. And so my dad wasn't dumb. He wasn't too. He was really really smart. Uh. But no one taught us financial literacy. You know. The Freeman's Bank failed, and that's what was supposed to teach free for all enslaved people about money and free enterprise and capitalist economics and opportunity. And we never got that memo. That's one of my books,

the memo read it I'm for said capitalism. Read that up from nothing, read that, And so he just didn't know what he didn't know, but he thought he knew. It's what we don't know that we don't know this killing is, but we think we know. And so my dad confused cash flow with profit. And so somebody would go bid a job before him, for laying a cement driveway.

They'd bid, let's say, one thousand dollars. One thousand dollars today would be a bargain for any kind of driveway, but it was one thousand dollars back then, and my dad would just go in and bid under him nine hundred dollars. Well, the materials might be nine to twenty five, might be nine to fifty with the twoteriers and labor, who knows. My dad just would take a scratch pad and sort of scratch some stuff out, but he'd miss some stuff, but he got the job right. So the

more money he made, the broker we got. He'd make a dollar and spend a dollar fifty. He thought, again, cash flow is profit? Hello, wrong, And so he started missing payments on the mortgages and missing payments on I remember my dad met people ask me sometimes why is it that I'm not racist? Like, why is it that I'm so comfortable with different races of people? And I would say that it doesn't matter whether your white, black, red, brown,

or yellow, which is all wants some more. Green is in the color at least in the US of US currency. Because at the front door of my house on marton the King Boulevard before that Santa Barbara was the payroll center. My dad would open that door on Fridays at five o'clock and meet payroll. And the workers were white, they were black, they were Hispanic, they were Indian workers at Native American Indian. They all worked for my dad as

day laborers. And some of them were, uh, you know, had worked for my dad four years and every Friday, no matter what, he met a payroll. Now he might have he wasn't. He didn't think he was broke. He had cash left over it on Friday night to go out to the juke joint or whatever and hang out and we will buy some clothes. But he might not have enough money for the mortgage payment or the car note or whatever, right, but he had enough money that moment, and so he thought he was rich. And he and

we were actually broke. But but I had this comfort with race because at an early age, not only did I see bankers in my classroom and teachers who happen to be Caucasian, and we got alan they were decent to me, thank god, h versus my friends growing up who had this experience of white people who would throw them against a patrol car and and pat him down or worse. Uh and so they became resentful of white people.

That wasn't, thank god, my experience. And then then I had this also, this experience of seeing my dad in a you know, a superior business position, not superior as a human being, superior as in the pecking order of the relationship to these other people who happened to be of other races as he was meeting pyrom and uh So I just remembered that very powerfully in my in my mind, and I was like, shoot, I want to, I want to. I want to write the check. I don't want to cash it, right, I want to be

the business owner, right. Uh. And I and my dad used to force me to go to jobs with him, se him at contracting jobs. And I mean I remember I used to I hated that. I hated this this was this. This is probably why I was like, I know, I got to work for myself. I used to go to these jobs and it was so hot and my dad and my dad's truck had no air conditioning, and literally like my mouth in my face, inside of my face, stick to the side of the glass. You know, it was so hot. And I'd go to sleep and I

had to peel my face off the glass. Uh. He'd stay inside talking to somebody for an hour and a half. Uh, you know whatever run in his mouth about something, and I got some like gift gift for gap and love for words from him. I'm sure and uh. And then he'd go, we'd go get a job and he and I, you know, I'm the boss's son. I wanted to be a supervisor. Nope, So he put me to work with the other workers, uh and doing menial labor, and you know,

he would mess with me dig a hole. Then he come back to where he was later fill in the hole. I'm like, okay, I'm done. And I had callouses on my hand right and I'm like, no, no, only cut I'm gonna get going forward is a is a paper cut endorse that check and deposited in the bank. I'm not doing this for the rest of my life. But that's that taught me. Hard work. That taught me that just because you're the boss of sons, you don't you don't get a pass right that everybody's got a hustle.

There's an old saying about wealth creation. The first generation makes it, second generation spends it, third generation loses it. Right, Well, we didn't. We didn't get to three generations because my dad made it but couldn't keep it because he was financially literate, and because he didn't see my mother as a partner with him. He just saw her as his mate, and so she was a financial genius on savings. Please listen to the podcast I did just dedicated to her.

I'll get it into her story. And you know, he could have made it, kicked it over to her. She could have saved it, invested it, you know, grew it, and it would have been a fantastic union. But that's not what happened. And you know, the number one calls for divorce in America, it's money. Number one reason for domestic abuse and households. Uh, it's money, number one reason for heart attacks, stress, number one of the reason for stress.

It's money, and my mom and dad stressed over money, and they broke up over money, and we lost everything. We lost our generational wealth, and so we had to start over. My mother had to start over and my dad. And then here's the deep part, Now this is really deep. My dad owned his own business and again, you know, was self determined, and it clearly was not lazy. It was a hustler by every definition, irrespectful definition of that phrase.

But my dad died broke. I'm gonna tell you the part of that, the rest part of that story, in a minute. My mother worked an hourly job listening now everybody who was employed somewhere. My mother worked an hourly job at McDonald Doalla's aircraft. And when she passed on, God rest both of their souls. She passed on September tenth, twenty twenty three. I just lost her. Recently, she's been promoted, gone to a better place with a great relationship. Thank god.

I did the best I could to make her life comfortable and even joyful. But she know she when you look at how much she put in as a down payments to my mother's, my sister, and my brother to buy homes and helping her family members. And there was time she helped me coming up. You know, I'm proud to say I paid her back. I'd have to go to her to her I think, which is twice in my entire life, or for anything. It was monetary, but she you know, you look at their entire net worth,

including you know, I'm an executive estate. And when she passed, it was a million dollars accumulated network for somebody making fifteen to eighteen dollars an hour on Can I get an amen? With a high school education? You know I'm talking about so so, So here's my mother worked a regular job. She died with an accumulation network networth of a million dollars, with a you know, an hourly job.

She retired from Mcdonaldongan's Aircraft, you know. And my dad owned his own business to the day he died and it was broke. So there you go. You can do well working at a job somewhere, because now that you make, it's about what you keep. Can I get an amen? It's the church of what's happening? Now? What have you done for me lately? So my dad fast forward now the story, I'm you know, I'm older, and I've gone out, gone out and done things and you know, achieved some

level of success. I remember my dad, you know, I used to come I would come home and tell him, Oh, Dad, you know, my President of United States said my name at a you know, at a ceremony or I'm an appointee for the president United States? And he who is it? That particular time, it was it was a President Reagan or President Bush. I've served Republican and Democratic presidents, and President Bill Clinton's a friend. I've served Obama and so

on and so forth. But this was President Reagan, whose wife had mentioned my name, and President George H. W. Bush, who had mentioned my name and opened a few doors for me. Then the son President Bush pointed me to a commission or to actually that's more than that, but actually actually have to create financial literacy policy to executive order with the son. But that's another story for another time. Anyway, I went to tell my dad and he was he

just blew it off. He just he's like, he's a Republican. You know, I want to encourage you people like who have children, like if they screw up, say, you know, I'm really upset with you. And and you're like, I get away with this, you future lawyer. I'm really frustrated with you, and I'm going to hold you accountable, you future business person, hold you know, hold up their aspirations, because this stuff sticks with kids, right, they're modeling what they see. My dad didn't mean me and he harm.

He was just talking, you know, he was just My dad was partisan, and he was straight up hardcore Democrat. I didn't respect it. I mean, I'm able to get it done party. I don't care, you know, don't care what party you from. I want to I want to get it done right. But you know, we had different approaches and we had different experiences. I mean, I had traveled with to work. My dad had never been out of the country, I don't believe. And I had by

that time, traveled to I think twenty different countries. I've traveled to one hundred now. So I didn't, you know, hold it against him. But I understand my dad had limited experiences and couldn't help me very much. So I didn't talk to him about anymore after that. What I was doing. I just tried to help him do what he was doing. Well. He had moved into a house that I found out he didn't own, and a young lady, an older lady owned the house and allowed him to

stay there, but he had to be your girlfriend. Yes, this is a true story. And so I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, that can't happen. So I'm buying the house, right, But I'm a capitalist, so I'm like, I'm buying this house.

But I'm not going to just hear like, have this expense on my balance sheet, I'll buy the house was knocked down three walls, keep one wall up, get plans for a three or four unit apartment building, build three or four units around those three the one remaining wall, get permits, get a construction loan, and then let's rent out the three units. You live in the first unit, and let's have a positive experience in what we messed up when my parents bought at eight unit apartment building

growing up. So Dad was like cool, and so I bought the house he was in from lady. We got a construction loan from Wells Fargo. And this is why I never hated on Wells Fargo. And Tom was my band's name. I gotta find his name, and I gotta give him credit. Tom at Wells Fargo, because if he had, Thoma Swanson, if he had defaulted on me, I wouldn't be here today because I got this construction loan. My father was in construction. So I said, okay, well I'm

gonna let you manage the construction loan. Wrong, I should remember, and I gave my dad, always with a marriage press card, a green card back then he maxed out the green card almost immediately. I remember six thousand dollars. Almost lost my mind and I couldn't pay it, and he couldn't pay it. He didn't know he charged it, and he had mismanaged a contruction loan, and we ended up with

a half done project. Luckily for me, at this point in particular, time values were going up, and I went to the banker and I just admitted, Hey, my dad screwed this thing up. I'm responsible for it, but I got to get this building completed. And he refinanced that construction loan. Can you believe that the banker, white banker, Tom Swanson, God bless you man, he refinanced that construction loan. If he hadn't refinanced that construction loan into a new

construction loans so I could finish that building. I'd be toe up from the flow up. I'd be broke poor. I'd be so poor I couldn't pay attention. I'd be so poor. This is to have a po not the r this pole po. I mean I'd be I had a file bankruptcy, it had been done. It was this was real money. It was you know back and then those days from my six hundred and seventy one thousand dollars, I was everything, and I took the you know love now,

I took the responsibility. I canceled the credit card my father, and I took the construction loan away from him and had another contractor to manage it. So here's a lesson for you. Don't make emotional decisions. Whatever decision you make emotionally, it is going to be the wrong decision. You can love your family and not do business with them. You can love your family and not put them in a situation where they don't they're not qualify, you're not doing

them any favors, you're not doing yourself a favor. And when you go a half for your money, it's going to be drama. Uh So, just don't put yourself in that situation in the first place like, if it's charity, go make your money over here and then go give it to somebody if you want to. But don't expect somebody who is financially illiterate. If you know, it's not they're not dumb, and there's not stupid. It's they're not dumb or stupid. It's what they don't know that they

don't know. This killing them, but they think they know. If I wanted to want some some knowledge about the Bible, go to my father. He was brilliant. He hit the Bible like memorize right. If I want to learn about you know, you know, fashion and styles in the neighborhood, go to him. I wanted to learn about cement masonry, uh, you know, working in you know, hot temperatures outside. There was a whole bunch of things that my dad was

really really good at. Could school me on how to float checks, right, But financial literacy is not one of them. Project management, business management was not one of them. It's not a knock. It just he didn't know what he

didn't know. And you know what, we got to stop rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic in our lives and ship is sinking and we're picking drapes, so you know, yeah, we finished the apartment building and he turned up his nose and me, but he got over it and he lived in that unit and dignity into the day he passed away. And I remember getting a call from Rachel, my chief of staff, Rachel daff, who was like a she. He considered her a surrogate darter and true, true, true conversation.

He actually at least told her he you know, played like he was closer to her than me, because he was. He was knocking on me because I was an independent spirit like him, and I was out running around trying to make the money, so I couldn't be around l as he was spending it. But I was honored to be to take care of him, right, and all of us should want to take care of our parents as they took care of us. But that doesn't mean you're

going to agree on everything. So Rachel called me and I had to run home and my dad was on a ventilator at Cedar Sinai Hospital, and I remember, you know, I said to the doctor to what do you you know, how do you guys feel about playing God? Like we're not playing God? You are if we took your dad off of this machine, he probably will float and pass away. You know, in minutes, these machines, millions of dollars with the equipment are keeping him alive. We're not playing god.

You are. This is your choice. And I had to you know, I'm the youngest in my family, but I had had to step up and have maturity. And I got everybody on the phone and we collectively as a family, said our goodbyes, and we said, look, either his body's given out, he's given up. Our God has called him. Either his body given out, he's given up, our God has called him. Or we're going to disconnect this equipment and he will somehow come back on his own relation.

That will be fantastic. But you know, does he want to be in vestable for the rest of his life? Is this the way? This is a quality of life he wants? Probably not. And he should have had a will. He didn't. By the way, my mother died with a will. She wrote, what everybody listening to this, you need a will so people don't fight when somebody passes on and a will fight because money changes people's mental makeup. I'm

sorry that just money changes people. So Luckily here the money was mine, so there was not much of a fight, although people did find a way to have an attitude with me. I can't quite figure that out because they weren't anywhere around when Dad was sick. But okay, be gracious,

but I just can't encourage it enough. To get your affairs in order and get a will, and if you can get a burial plot, and if you can get an insurance policy, because the insurance policy is the cheapest form of generational wealth creation that you can pass on

to your children. You don't have much money, don't have to work as a young person twenty thirty forty years old, Go get you a term or whole life insurance policy and name your beneficial and when you and create a will, and then you change the will, change the beneficiaries on

the insurance policy. So when you pass away, maybe you only made thirty or forty thousand dollars a year, but you could have a half million doile of life insurance policy, and your heirs get the benefits of that, and we're able to reset their life and go buy a house or start a business or whatever, you know, continue the

legacy of the family. But my dad didn't do any of that, and I know I had to start from scratch, but we you know, we made the decision to let him, you know, pass on, or to let him float, as they said in the hospital, and I yuess he passed on. I don't know why we get upset and want to blame God for death. By the way, you know, we don't know how long we don't live, but we dang

shouldn't know we're gonna die, Like, what's the mystery? You know, we salute and we celebrate children coming in this world, but we want to rail at God when elderly people transition. This is the ebb and flow of life. And we're not human beings having a spiritual experience of European profits at that's the European philosopher. Sorry, we're spiritual beings having

a human experience. We're not human beings having a spiritual experien is where spiritual beings having a human experience, energy matters, and those people are going to be with you forever. My dad's still in me, my mother is still in me, and their legacy lives through me. It's just their physical body is falling away. And now I'm trying to give the benefits of their legacy and their lessons to you.

This is John O'Bryant, and this is a silvil rights movement from the streets to the suites, from civil rights the silvil rights. This is the work of Operation Hope, where we are the private banker to the working class and the working middle class and folks with too much month at the end of their money. So you don't have to be like my father and scratch and script and scream and scrimp and make bad decisions like you can do better right where you are, and we can

show you how. And we can go to one man black business Issuan. We will show you how to create a proper business with and even an e commerce business at no cost to you. By the way, rainbows only follow storms. This is my rainbow after the storm. And the reason that we have Operation Hope today is in part because of what my dad did for me at the positive and even the so called negatives. You can't grow except through legitimate suffering. Only do legitimate suffering do

you grow. I learned many lessons from my dad and I love him forever and ever and ever, and I will try to make him proud, even though I deal with politicians from all sides of the aisle. Love and Light, I'm Out, Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of the Black Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Step