#154: Resilience In A Global Financial Crisis With Scott Shay

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I'm feeling wonderful sitting here this morning, really looking forward to the conversation that I'm about to have with a great guest. I mean, not just a great guest, but somebody that's a leader in the world, in the business world, and in other ways. I'd say somebody that has just a diversity of interests. And even though he's somebody new to me, somebody I haven't much conversation with before, I've already come to see that we are simpatico in many ways. And I don't think there's anything, you know, from the place that we— well, where he lives, where I used to live, some of our business interests and other interests in life and in spirituality and some really great things. So I'm just excited. And I would say you're going to experience something really special. So buckle up, or maybe you can keep walking on the elliptical or whatever you're doing, but I definitely want you to be able to be present and pay attention because this is going to be wonderful. The gentleman's name is Scott Shea, and he's the co-founder of Signature Bank in New York, which if you're not from that part of the world, I think they are up to about 1,400 employees and last year had about half a billion in net income. He is a leading businessman, a thought leader, author of 2 widely read books, and he co-founded Signature Bank, by the way, in 2001. We're going to talk about that in just a moment. It's a bank that's become one of the best banks in New York for private business owners. Scott's second book, In Good Faith: Questioning Religion and Atheism, has been recognized as one of the best books of 2018 by Mosaic Authors and also earned a finalist award from the National Jewish Books in 2018. Scott gives talks around the country, is interviewed on TV, radio, podcasts many times throughout the year. Scott, I'm thrilled to have you on the show today. Thanks for being with us.

It's a pleasure to be here. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Yeah, listen, there's a lot in your bio. It's very— it's impressive. What's not written in the bio that you would love for people to know about you at the outset?

Well, I think from the outset, to really know me, you have to understand that I might be chairman of a $50 billion bank today, but I grew up in a one-bedroom apartment where my parents had the bedroom, I lived in the dining room, and my mother's brother for many years lived in the living room. And, you know, it's been an amazing journey. And my father, the other thing I think people don't, you know, know, although they know if they read In Good Faith, my father was a Holocaust survivor. And his experience

You and I, we didn't talk about this before we started the show, but there's another one of those little simpatico moments. I grew up also in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens, New York, where it's interesting. I guess it was special because it was a one-bedroom. It was the L-shaped living room, and so part of that was the dining room and part of that was the living room, and they built a wall. This was a big deal back in the day. They actually built a wall. They built a wall so that the dining room was no longer a dining room. They put a door on it from the kitchen and my brother and I shared that room that was the dining room. So you can imagine just what the size of that thing was.

Yeah, I can't imagine it actually. Although I grew up in East Rogers Park in Chicago for anybody who knows that.

Yeah, so interesting start. Speaking of interesting start dates for things or start times, you co-founded Signature Bank in I know the bank from many, many transactions that I actually was involved in when I was a lawyer in New York. You started that bank in 2001. So when people are watching this, listening to this right now, we are all quite aware of the fact that we are in some interesting times, to put it mildly. Water got pretty deep. And we know when— I was a lifeguard for many, many years, ocean lifeguard. When the water gets deep, not only do you feel it, but You can sense that people get panicked by it, put into their zone of discomfort. They're not used to, not even in a world of disruption, and we live in one. It's disrupted all the time. And yet this coronavirus has taken us, many people, by surprise, taken me by surprise. Didn't see not just this thing coming, but the reaction to it. And I was— Renny and I, my wife and I, were discussing just in the last couple of days, the last time we felt that the world was this sort of off-kilter was right after 9/11. And that's a long time ago, and yet it's just a second ago, right?

Absolutely.

So bring us back to that point. And part of why I want to do this is I want to set the landscape up, because, you know, when we're most— as a species, when we're most in fear, it's because we have either lost some sense, some faith, or some sense of hope, or we actually anticipate, you know, with our what-if thinking, Our amygdala, that part of our brain that's constantly looking for the threat and we have to defend that threat, that we're on guard so much right now that we believe that something catastrophic could happen. In fact, people are catastrophizing all over the place. It's on the media, it's in the news, it's in the stock market, which, you know, is a huge driver of the sentiment. Consumers everywhere, you know, look at that as a guide. Right after 9/11, it was the same thing. Different, completely different, yet the same, remember? I mean, people were looking at each other very suspiciously, especially if you looked like you were from another country, if you were wearing something on your head, if your skin was darker. There were real issues in New York at the time with that. And people weren't sure, frankly, whether we'd be attacked again. There was great speculation that the economy might not be able to survive, that major institutions would go bust. And for a few months, I mean, markets went down, real estate was on sale big time, and people just didn't have their footing. And yet you chose then to co-found a bank. Give us a little insight into the counterintuitive decision-making there.

Well, so here's the thing. We actually had the idea of starting a bank in the '90s, late '90s, because I thought that the banking business in New York, I thought it Way overconsolidated. You know, there used to be JP Morgan, there used to be Chase, there used to be Manny Hanny, there used to be Chemical, there used to be Greater Bank of Greater New York, there used to be Trust Company of Westchester. I could go on and on and on about 19 other banks, all became JP Morgan Chase. And you had this huge overconsolidation. And I convinced 2 other folks who originally thought I was crazy, but they joined me and became my partners, Joe DiPaolo and John Tamburlaine. To start a new bank. Now, it's not so quick to start a new bank. You don't go like that and start a new bank. It took us 14 months from the time that we, you know, first had a little tiny office with 5 people in it. And we opened our doors May 1st, 2001. Now, would you told me, you know, April 27th or whatever, the Friday before, whenever it was, that in 6 months the World Trade Centers would be felled Interest rates would go from, at the time, 6.25% to 1%. And we— don't forget, banks make money on float. And New York would enter its worst recession since World War II, worse than what happened in 2008. You know what? I might have had second thoughts, but we didn't know that at the— on May 1st, 2001. So, we opened the bank and I remember telling the investors after— in September, after September 11th, you know, giving them a briefing and they were pretty freaked out. Yeah, that's an understatement.

It's an understatement.

It's an understatement. But you know what? Let me give you the punchline. We were losing at first $2.5 million a month. We broke even after 21 months and we went public after 34 months. And today, 18 and a half years later, we're a $50 billion bank and we've never done an acquisition. So, we had a good idea, but you never know what's going to actually be your pivot. So—

Indeed.

Here's something that I will tell you that also is counterintuitive to people. So, when we got up, when we started, I gave a talk, you know, rah-rah talk at the beginning, and I said, in 5 years, we're going to be a $5 billion bank, and in 10 years, we're going to be a $10 billion bank. And that just came out of my mouth, you know, some other place.

Yes.

And I just made it up on the spot. And actually, you know, listeners who follow math, you know, actually, it's harder to get to $5 billion in 5 years than $10 billion, you know, from $5 to $10 because of the math. But having said that, that's what I said. Fast forward 5 years, we were a $3.8 billion bank and we were doing fine. We were growing. There was nothing to be embarrassed about, but then the financial crisis hit. So, we're, you know, I'm talking 2008. 2006, we're a $3.8 billion bank. Then the financial crisis hits. Well, you know what happened when we were a 10-year-old bank? We were $14.8 billion. We had grown $11 billion in those 5 years across the financial crisis, if you count, you know, sort of '07 as starting. And the reason was, was because we were a safe bank. We didn't invest, and I was certainly very skeptical of subprime, of all of these CDO squared, of the high, you know, the complicated financial instruments that were going on. So, we didn't do any of it. And sometimes the important part of banking is recognizing you're not a genius, just avoiding doing the stupid stuff. And that's what we did.

I think Charlie Munger, who's a pretty world-renowned investor, said, you know, he's not trying to figure everything out or be so smart. He just wants to avoid being idiotic. I'm botching his exact quote, but that's the premise of it. Just avoid being idiotic. I mean, think about that. And this is from one of the world's— you know, this is the guy that Warren Buffett tips his hat to. So you go, that's an interesting perspective. And you said, in essence, the same thing there. Yeah. Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

Yep. And so that— so the timing, while it might have seemed like the worst timing in the world, we did show our resiliency. You know, you're wearing that shirt and that's your You know, we are— we did show our resiliency. We never had a down year during the whole financial crisis. We were the only bank in the United States above $4 billion that did not have a down year. We made more money in '08 than '07, more money in '09 than '08, etc., etc. And that got people's attention precisely because we were resilient. And then since then, in the 10-year— in the 9 years since, you know, our 10th anniversary, we're a $50 billion bank. So, we've grown from $14.8 to over $50. Wow. And it's again, all organic growth. So, you never know, and this is something that I, you know, it's the theme of your show, you never know when something's going to take you in an entirely different direction than you thought. I never would have thought that a financial crisis would actually be a time that we would shine. I never really thought that after 9/11, That— which was a very strange time. I remember watching F-15s flying in over, you know, over Manhattan and not being able to leave the island and having the smell, which I remember to this day, in the air. And you knew part of that were human beings. And it was just— and you couldn't escape it in Manhattan. You couldn't escape that smell. You know, talk about the water getting deep, the air got deep.

Yeah. Looking at the landscape that you just— because that's going to take us to today, and I think it's a really important thing for us to discuss is resilience, not just conceptually, but even practically speaking, because it sounds like attributing that growth over those periods where you've got 2 milestone events that could have easily stopped you dead in your tracks. I mean, this bank could have been done and toast 6 months in. Like right after 9/11, that could have been the end of it. It certainly could have been the end of it when Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt and we were on the precipice. I think later, I don't know how much you knew at that time, but looking back on it now— Yeah. With everything that's available to see, we were really on the precipice of something pretty horrific that was averted. And that could have taken you guys out as well. This resilience almost had a compounding effect because in spite of all that, you grew and grew exponentially so.

Yes. Well, we did have some sense of what was going on. I wrote an article in '08 on Bloomberg called Shoot the Wounded, where I was saying we have to, which we didn't do with some of the big banks. I actually, for those of your listeners who are really, I don't want to say financial, who are interested in the finance world, I gave a TED Talk in 2012. Where it sort of explains some of what was going on and what some of the mistakes that were made in the financial crisis were. I've written a lot about that. And—

Did they get it right in The Big Short, do you think? I mean, I know it's drama, it's movie, it's, you know, all that. But is that in essence the story of that?

Yeah, it's dramatized tremendously. But look, it's like I said, I had the sense, the reason we didn't do any— people, look, in '06, there were people coming in. I had meetings with investors who would come in and say, why aren't you buying these AAA subprime bonds? You could earn more. What are you doing investing in Ginnie Maes and Treasuries and Fannies and Freds? What are you doing? You should be— you could earn more.

Right.

Or people saying, when you're not using our capital well enough because you're not lending into construction, or you're not levered enough, Etc. And I don't want to take the credit that I knew there was supposed to be— it was a time to make a big short because that wasn't my thing, but I knew that the financial world had gone astray.

Yes.

And that something bad was about to happen. I'm actually on the record at Signature Bank. I'm saying, I can't believe— I was talking about subprime, these subprime AAA bonds, and then 6 months later, they're doing even better.

Yeah.

And I remember saying, I don't know what I'm missing. But we're still not going to do this. And so if you want to get to the core issue, if you really want to get to the core issue, I'll tell you what happened, which is that it's 2 things. Number one, there was a little bit of idolatry in this, in that where people were bowing down to the rating agencies who were saying, oh, this is AAA. And the reason the rating agencies were doing that is because the big banks had so much influence at the time in creating these instruments. And people used what I would call word bombs. They'd say, look at my shiny XYZ-2006 AAA security. We've used stringent Intuit and Intex data. We've stratified this by borrower type, by zip code, by tranche, by, you know, by fabricating and replicating with a Monte Carlo simulation, Z-bond analyses, and people actually didn't know what anybody was talking about, but they didn't want to look stupid.

Yes.

And these things all had meanings, but they lost track of the fact that the gonzo person in the house couldn't make the payment. Basic

premise.

Basic premise. They couldn't understand that and they couldn't realize that there was nobody who had any incentive to check along the way. So, how did these liar's loans happen? Because nobody checked if anybody was lying. Everybody was sort of bowing down to the money god, if you will. So, people are all convinced that this sort of financial technology works, even when there's actually no reason to be convinced of it. But there's no incentive on anybody to step up and say that the emperor has no clothes because everybody along the line is making money. Some of these homeowners, by the way, you know, in Merced, you live in San Diego, in Merced, California, there's the homes that were started out as being worth $76,000 and 3 years later, they were being refinanced for $350,000 just because everybody was making out.

And Las Vegas and Phoenix and— Absolutely.

And all over the place. Absolutely.

And it's interesting because you were saying something that was not popular at the time, which is, you know, like you're questioning the rationale, the common sense. Common sense is not common. I think Nietzsche's credited as saying that. But Warren Buffett's always spoken about it being, you know, these cycles where when people are greedy, you should be fearful, and when people are fearful, you should be greedy. And clearly, I think you got a sense of the greed that was going on and it caused you to back up and take a more careful look at it? And it's interesting because— and he uses this great analogy. I love Buffett's analogy about it's like you're standing at the plate in baseball and one pitch goes by, you let it go by. Another pitch goes by, it's a good pitch, you let it go by. And people are screaming at you from the stands, you bum, swing, you bum. What are you doing? And you could see people were just like, you got to get in this game. Just like until, I don't know, 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, you know, if you were questioning the bull market and weren't getting in at the Dow when it was 25,000, 26,000, 27,000, you know, it's like you're looking like—

30,000.

An idiot. Yeah, 29,000, right, exactly. You're an idiot for not being in this game because— and yet these cycles, they repeat. Just like there are seasons and everything in nature is a part of those seasons. Change is a natural order in the universe. And it should be no surprise on some level that we're experiencing this massive change now. But I know you wanted to say something there. I really want to— I want to talk to— I want to get the name of the TED Talk that you gave while we're— while it's still relevant in the conversation.

Oh yeah, it was called Banking by the People for the People. If someone just goes on to ted.com or to YouTube, they can find it. There's a fair number of hits, so it shows right up.

We're huge fans of TED. and the TEDx talks. In fact, we train— our company trains TEDx speakers. We do a lot of training of people that want to do keynotes and that kind of thing, but TEDx speaking today—

That was the toughest talk. I prepared for a, I don't know, was it a 14-minute talk?

Yeah.

I spent more time on those 14 minutes than I have ever spent on preparing a talk before that might have been much, much harder. And those The TED people are— they keep pushing you to do better and better before the talk. It's quite an experience.

It is. In fact, I've said this before, I was speaking publicly when I was a lawyer. It was a different kind of public speaking, but for almost 10 years professionally. And when I gave my TED Talk about a year and a half ago, it was excruciating. I mean, the editing of the script down to every single word having the meaning and having the impact that, you know—

Memorizing it.

But then, yeah, you just put your finger on it.

Memorizing it.

It was like 2 weeks before and I looked at my wife and I go, you know, I'd I studied for the bar exam and the LSTATs, all these things. I said, Randy, I don't know if my brain can hold all these words anymore. Like 2,000 words to be committed. You know, I really thought I'm not going to be able to do this. It was tough.

So the person who curates— you've done this. So someone comes, people come from TED and they— this was TEDxWallStreet, actually. So they come and they listen to you do this and it keeps getting better and better. And they told me to do some very strange things, one of which is to deliver my whole talk With the radio turned up.

All the way up.

You know, all the way up, just to make sure that it was seared into my brain.

Oh.

But, you know—

Walk it, talk it, do it in front of the mirror. I used to do it at the beach with the seagulls. I tortured my family, you know, they had to listen to it again and again.

14 minutes.

Yeah. I

haven't looked at it since then. You know, the funny thing is—

That's classic.

I haven't looked at it since then.

For real? Oh, well, yeah.

I mean, I looked at the first when they posted it. I look at it, but I didn't— I've not sat through the whole thing.

All right, well, I haven't seen it myself, so today I'm gonna be watching it, and everybody else, you'll get out there and check it out as well. So

the one thing you'll notice is you'll be watching a hip guy in a suit.

All right, good, love it. So let's go to what's going on in the world right now. The part of the reason I wanted to start the show the way we did was because there's— I follow patterns. I like to see where there's a trend, let's say, and Historically, we're just going back to 2001. We could back up much further to find these moments in time when the sky was falling. Literally, people felt like everything's changing, everything's coming to an end. We've got to build a bomb shelter. You're not old enough to remember that period of time in our history, but we did have that. People were building and making a lot of money in building bomb shelters for other people who thought communists are going to drop an atomic bomb on us. So, but your business history starts in 2001 at a very, very odd time in our world and very difficult. A lot of healing that's come from there. And then we go into this financial crisis that people didn't see coming. It's really based on greed and a lot of other forces, kind of a perfect storm of things, if you will. And now there's been several things, of course, since then and lots of other disruption in our world with technology, politics, etc. But here we are now and it's coronavirus. 2020. 2020. 2020. And we're a couple of months in and the world is again in a state of chaos. I don't expect you to have any solutions to this, but just what's the wisdom that you feel that can be imparted now? Because you're leading, you're involved in a company that has more than 1,400 employees, you have a ton of money under management, huge fiduciary responsibilities, etc. I'm sure you're not telling people, well, I don't even want to go there. What are you telling people, or what's the line at the bank now about all this?

Well, I can give you the line at the bank. Not the line, because it's all authentic. Yeah, I don't mean it that way. Sorry. I mean that, you know, where you're coming from though. Yeah, is that when we think about the human condition, it goes way further back. Think about the Bible. I mean, Joseph, you know, there were years of feast, and then all of a sudden There's famine. And don't forget, the famine was so bad and not— and Egypt actually had the Nile. You know, the world changes on a dime. The Israelites, they were living in Goshen raising all their, you know, their sheep and cattle, and then they become slaves. And you know what? Things turn on a dime again when they leave Egypt. And then when you look at the whole Bible, it's about things that you recognize That your tests come at this very time. When the temple in Judea was about to be destroyed, and Jeremiah knows that the Israelites, the Jews, are going to be exiled for a long time, what does he do? He goes out and buys land, and he takes the deed and he puts it in an earthen jar so that it can be buried and last a long time. It's at these very moments when the world literally looks like it's falling apart that a lot depends on our personal courage, on recognizing here's where you have to not depend. And it's in times like these that you have to think for yourself because there's a lot of— I mean, In times like these, and at times like— and this may sound subversive, but a lot of times the people with the power, the people that get us to the point, actually weren't being straight. I mean, how did we get to the financial crisis of 2008? Well, because people weren't being straight about what was in these instruments, people weren't being straight about what was on their balance sheet, etc.

Right.

I mean, in all candor, the Chinese initially weren't being straight. The doctor who found the virus—

Yeah.

was forced to recant it in a ritual way. So at times like these, what you have to look for is the truth, and it's not necessarily so easy to find. I'm not talking about conspiracy theories or the— you just have to look at the environment and say, what is really going on? Am I making the right reaction or making the wrong reaction? And that takes a certain seriousness. That I think congenitally human beings aren't built to do. Human beings like to follow a leader. It's been that way. You know, how did humanity get Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Assad family, the Kim family? You know, Mao— I don't know if I'm repeating— you know, Hitler. People follow these, all of these people willingly. It's because people are so desperate for following a leader, and to a lesser degree even in the United States where we become so tribalized and we're either part of the MSNBC nation and what they say is true, or we're part of the Fox nation and what they say is true. Truth of the matter is, it's probably something different, and that requires a lot of work, and it requires putting aside your assumptions, putting aside, you know, easily following people. And that's what I encourage people to do now. I mean, you could go into hiding in a time like this, but that may not be appropriate, frankly, for a 25— for a healthy 25-year-old. On the other hand, for a 65-year-old smoker with a lung condition, maybe the appropriate thing to do is to go into self-isolation.

Yes.

But you can't just say there's like one thingy and it's good for everybody. No, you got to figure it out for yourself and you got to do it in a clear-eyed way and without being, you know, obsessive-compulsive about it. And I think that's— look, when all of the leaders in the Bible, the thing that's amazing about them is they tried to figure out what was truth, who was lying, you know. I mean, it's easy to be an idolater. Who's telling the truth? What should I believe? And, you know, I don't care if you're a believer or you're not a believer. That's one of the central messages of the Bible is seeking out what the actual truth is. And then as you lead from the truth, you go far.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we We must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about, and it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift. To you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So, go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

And it often points to one place where you find that truth. I read a lot of the Bible and find it incredibly useful in my life today. I didn't read any of it when I was younger. And I'm still not a religious person, but very spiritual in that there's great wisdom in the scripture, all kinds of scriptures, and every major religion, it points to the same place, origin for answers, and that is within ourselves. As the man, as the woman thinketh in their heart, so are they, so shall they be. You've got to find truth and common sense and what's right and what's real. Inside of yourself. The difficulty in that, I agree with you that we're sort of wired to be part of a herd. We're wired to know that we're safer in the herd. This is just genetically baked into our DNA that when we're outside the herd, we're more at risk. So it's not any wonder. But being an independent thinker, this is— my wife and I, we have 4 kids and we've said this forever. The kids didn't come with a manual. We were surprised they let us take them home from the hospital. I mean, seriously. Right. We didn't have a clue. But what we did know And said from the very beginning was we wanted our kids to be independent thinking in this world. And what I love, really love about not only the conversation but what you've laid out for us is that you and your leader, the other leaders in your bank, in your institution, your organization had modeled counterintuitive thinking. Meaning contrary, not just for the sake of being contrary, right? Right. But being contrary to the herd, the school of fish swimming in one direction Because we're able to ask those questions and sit with them long enough to realize something's not right here. This doesn't make sense. So how do we go along with that in good conscience and ethically when it doesn't feel like it's right? And I think the difficulty for a lot of folks today is that we're so inundated with information. It's so noisy. Literally, figuratively, so noisy in the space of our heads and in the environment we live in. How can anybody kind of be clear-eyed, as you said? And this is where I guess we maybe look at what we can be doing now, each of us individually, to take personal responsibility for being clear-eyed. It's like, you've got to have quiet time. You've got to have time to reflect and time to think and sit with things and run it through the filter of common sense. And then there is the fact that religious teaching and parts of religious texts are really not just comforting, They are places where you can sit with things long enough to gain a perspective. Now, you, you're a writer, so on top of everything else, at some point you're like, I'm a writer. Talk about a pivot.

Yeah, I wrote this— this book took me 5 years to write, and it took all of my discretionary free time. But I want to come back to something that you're saying, because I think this is an important point for your listeners. It's an important point for me, and it's one that I really, over the 5 years of writing this book, I really got to understand is that you can do this with meditation, but for me, it's prayer. So for those of you listening who want to do— For me, it's prayer as well. Think of, you know, substitute the word meditation for prayer. That's okay. But I believe that there is an Almighty God. So if I believe that, I believe that that God knows everything about me. So that when I'm in prayer, there's no place for me to self-deceive. I think I— and I'll take it on myself, and I assume this applies to a few other people— we're the easiest, you know, we're the, we're the, we're the easiest ones to deceive when it's ourselves, because we want to tell ourselves all these comforting stories, make all these excuses for ourselves. Mm-hmm. About why we're doing what we're doing as opposed to why we— why we're not doing what we should be doing, or knowing that certain things need to be done, but we've got an excuse for not doing it. But if you're in that moment of prayer and you realize that you are having a dialogue with someone who knows you 360, who knows, yes, the appropriate excuses, but knows where you're fibbing to yourself, then you've got it like this heart, this light on yourself, and it's really a bright light that leaves you nowhere to hide. And sometimes, I can speak for myself, I cringe. And I think most people will cringe at what they've sort of done and not done. But in that moment, you can have a clear-eyed Self-assessment. Okay, got it. What do I need to do? What am I missing? What excuses and simple pat— and, you know, quick shortcuts am I taking that I can't take because of my responsibilities to my family, myself, whoever? And that's why prayer is so powerful for me. And I'll tell you, over the 5-year journey, because I was writing this book It was a journey. It's, it, it, you know, and the, and the part on prayer is the last part because one thing that's true about me for sure is that I pray totally differently than I did, um, when I started this. I, I mean, I'm not just taking the text of what the, you know, the liturgy says, the Siddur in Hebrew, or, but the, whatever your hymnal is. I'm really saying, okay, I'm taking this seriously. And if you take it seriously, I think it has an impact on your business life, on your partnerships, on your relationships, and also on how you conduct business because I really believe that the rubber meets the road in our personal relationships in business. I mean, to a certain degree, we are economic animals. I mean, you can't actually tell— you can— it's— for most people who aren't in government or wielding violent power, the way you can tell someone is a good person or a bad person is how they do their business transactions or how they act as an employer, how they act with others. And prayer really forces you to reconcile up with what you're doing during the day. Because you can't actually pray in the morning and then spend the rest of your day preying on people.

Oh, that's an interesting statement. Have you said that before?

Yeah, I did say that. It's from the book. So I did say that before. It's from the book. Good.

Well, good on you because that's a statement I'm going to remember as well, which is this thing where I think a lot of people do spend time in meditation or in prayer and then And you let me know if this has been your experience as well. And then 10 minutes later, you know, they might be in that place in their meditation or their prayer where they realize everything is really okay. I mean, let the winds blow, but we're all good. Meaning they've quieted themselves, they're grounded, they're alert, but not alert with a racing heart with cortisol pumping in their bodies and they're in fight or flight, but they're alert. And, and actually their, their blood pressure goes down. That's the way I get in crisis. It's been that way for a long time. Maybe. I came from growing up in a city where there was a lot of threat. I mean, I grew up in a much less kind and gentle Manhattan than New York. Yes. I mean, I worried where I walked and got beat up and got mugged and all this stuff that New York used to be about. Now it's a bit more of a Disney scene there, which is good, you know, that's a good thing, but it's also different. In any event, the threat, the feeling that, that we've got to defend ourselves, I think closes us off to some of that Real guidance that comes from within. And yet we get to a place like that and 10 minutes later, an hour later, despite that, we're wrecking— we're doing something in contrast to that understanding, let's say, that everything's okay or that we're all connected, that I should never look at someone else and think, you know, somehow they're different than I am. Not really. But 10 minutes later, you're on the highway or you're at a stoplight.

Right.

And somebody beeps their horn at you and you flip them the bird. You go, so where did my prayer go? Where did my meditation and my peace go? And, and there's this building and wrecking thing that happens for a lot of people. I don't know if that's been your experience at all, but it also takes constant vigilance, and I guess maybe that's where we're going to end up anyway.

Constant vigilance. And I would just say this: I try to live by one rule, and that's— Hillel said the entire Bible can be summed up with one phrase: don't do what is hateful what would be hateful to yourself to someone else. So in other words— and the rest is commentary. So in other words, flipping the bird to somebody, you probably wouldn't want someone to do that to you, so don't do it to someone else. And anytime you say it's okay to do someone— something to someone else that you're not doing, that you wouldn't be happy done to you, being done to you, you sort of self-deify. And that's the major message of the Bible, is don't self-deify. There's only one deity. And if you get that, then the day will continue because you'll always have in mind, I'm not the deity. Nobody's a deity. We all share the first, you know, couple of lines in the Bible where we all share a spark of divinity. Everybody's got it. Now, it's not so easy to figure that out all the time, and it's not so easy to figure out what the other person's divinity is, but You're supposed to know that it's there someplace, maybe not at that second.

Yeah,

and I try to live by that. I'm sure I fail too. I'm not, you know, nowhere near perfect. You can certainly ask my family members, they could probably give you chapter and verse, but I have it in mind.

Yeah,

and I think that's the sort of thing to always have in mind.

Consciousness.

Consciousness.

Scott, what is the leadership at the bank What is the CEO at Signature Bank saying to its folks right now? Is there a message that you guys have curated specifically in response to a lot of panic over the coronavirus?

There's a lot of panic and there's a lot of financial panic too.

Yes, there is tons of it.

I mean, we're counseling our folks to be safe, to do— to take appropriate steps. We're doing everything that, you know, the CDC and the like are doing. But I have to tell you, you know, I'm concerned and we're talking to clients because when, you know, caterers have all of their events canceled and when, you know, the NBA, when the NBA cancels games, that doesn't just impact the players who are all millionaires, that impacts the people selling beer.

Yep.

And the people, you know, taking the tickets. And, and so there are tremendous knock-on impacts, ripple effects, and those are the impacts that I'm most concerned about. So it's as though the entire— if you've ever shifted gears, it's like you're driving on the highway and you suddenly try to take your car out of gear on a stick shift, you know, pumping down on the, you know, while pumping The crank shift. Yeah,

you're going 70 and you drop it into 3rd gear and you hear the engine make a sound.

Yeah.

But you don't want to hear it.

It doesn't sound good and it isn't good.

No.

And so, I think that, you know, today the Dow was down another 2,000 points after being down 2,000 points a day earlier. So, you're also seeing folks who have made retirement and other plans who are suddenly saying, whoa,

Yeah.

I just lost 30% of my nest egg. So this is a time of, you know, I don't want to call it biblical proportions because it's not that, but it is one of those times that personal courage is going to be very important and pulling together is going to be very important. Non-partisanship is going to be very important and helping people who are in need are going to be— is going to be very important because Most people who are going to be hurting actually are not going to be hurting from the virus. They're going to be hurting because— Financially. —business has collapsed or their income has gone away. And that's, I think, right now actually mission one.

I agree, Scott. I would love to, as we're wrapping things up, talk just briefly about your own personal— and I think we get a sense, I got a sense of what you do to maintain resilience For yourself. Because you and I, before we even went live here, we talked about how we've been a resilient— we're a resilient race where we are. Humanity is resilient over thousands of years. We've seen it. I mean, through every imaginable and unimaginable thing. So this is really no different than that. It can't be, I don't believe. And what will define the experience for many of us is just how we handle it. Right. Does it actually draw the best out of us, or does it somehow draw the worst out of us? Which you, you get to see both many, many times.

You know, it's a time where— and again, I go back to the Bible on this too, since we're talking a lot of spirituality. I mean, you know, look, I was talking about, you know, the Exodus. I mean, the Egyptian midwives, when Pharaoh was saying throw all of the Israelite boys into the Nile River. These 2 Egyptian midwives said, well, we can't tell the Pharaoh no, so we got to come up with some way not to do it. So they said, well, they figured out how to play into, by the way, Pharaoh's lies. They said, well, you know, these Israelite women, they give birth like animals. We don't get there in time. And meanwhile, they're obviously delivering the babies.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today.

It's a time when you don't know the way that your courage is going to be asked of you. It may be, it may be to help someone. It may not, you know, again, it's most likely not to be directly on the virus, but on the ripple effects of the virus. Right. And this is a time when people need to step up and do the right thing. And that'll be a different right thing for every single person, but there will be that right thing. And, you know, we can either walk by that moment Or we can show leadership. And I think human beings do sort of know that if we can strip away again all of the self-deception that we like to tell ourselves. There is that moment. And I hope, you know, and that can change everything. It can change everything for someone, for someone you help and for yourself because you realize it's in there in you.

Yes, exactly. Everybody's a natural leader. I know that some people get that moniker. There's a natural leader there. Look at that charismatic leader. That person, he just attracts or she attracts people to. But the fact is, and I truly believe this, everyone has that. We've all got the DNA. We wouldn't be here otherwise. We're the result of— it could easily be in any mathematical model that we didn't make it this far. So the fact that we are here is not just a miracle, But it is truly a testament to what we are made of as human beings.

And if we, each of us, I think, own that, take responsibility for that, step up to it, as you say, not walk past it, then this will be one of those little footnotes as well in history.

Well, not one that's a small thing, but a thing that we just go, yeah, look how we dealt with that and came out the other end of it.

Well, one thing that I talk about in my book, again toward the end of the book, is Life is actually— and the Bible sets this up— basically life is a series of tests. Do we pass them or not? I mean, there's really two— the two most important days for any human being are the day you're born, because now you're in the game, and then the day you figure out why you're here. And that's the day you can actually control, and that's in a way the most important day. If you figure out what your purpose is, how you can help, how you can make this planet a better place, how you can make humanity a little better, Changes everything. And that generally revolves around the test. And that's why we have to strip away self-deception. I mean, that's the most important thing you can do as an individual. You know, look, I felt these are really important questions. That's why I spent 5 years, you know, getting rid of everything else. I used to be on charity, you know, a whole bunch of charitable boards. I used to be a cyclist, believe it or not. I wasn't a competitive, but I was doing all sorts of events, you know, these sort of longer events. Yeah. I gave it all up because I just felt like I need to write this book. That was the thing that I felt. And for everyone, it's going to be different.

Yes. But whatever your labor—

Whatever that is.

Your labor of love, like you go back to that example you gave with the midwives, right? We all finding our labor of love. My dad's a writer as well, and both very fortunate. Both my mom and dad still doing, doing great and in their 80s and all of that and independent. And try to keep my mom from doing what she wants to do. She was in the city last night, actually. Manhattan for an event. We were like, come on, seriously? But she's just, you know, she knows her own mind. The book is In Good Faith: Questioning Religion and Atheism by Scott J. Scott. It has been such a pleasure to have you on the show. I could talk to you for a long, long time. This is about all the time we've got for now, but maybe we'll do a part 2 when we've gotten beyond the catastrophe, you know, the quote-unquote catastrophizing of things, and we'll circle back and maybe see see what we've learned in the process. But really happy that you are the kind of person that's involved at a high level of leadership of a major institution, Signature Bank. And for all the people that have their money with you and have put their faith and trust in that organization, I think they're in really good hands. I don't say that lightly. I was a lawyer for 18 years. I wouldn't say that about too many banks, frankly. Just like people wouldn't say that about too many lawyers, maybe, I don't know. But there's good people and there's good organizations everywhere. And I think you guys are doing a wonderful job. So thank you for making the time today.

Thank you. This has been really a pleasure. It's been quite a conversation. So thank you. And I look forward to continuing it.

Wonderful. Wonderful. Again, the TED Talk as well. Just mention the name of the TED Talk you gave again.

Oh, Banking by the People, for the People. And I can say it's actually easy to find if you go to my website, scottshaye.com. You'll find information on— you'll find the TED Talk, you'll find my Google Book Talk, you'll find a debate I had with Michael Shermer, you'll find some of the best podcasts that I've done, of which this will be on it.

Yeah, good.

And, you know, information on the book, study guides. The book, by the way, is also available— since I'm on a podcast where people like to listen, it's available on Audible as well. Andrew Totlas read the book and he's got a much better voice than me. Oh, I like that. I don't know.

Your voice would have been so bright. You know what? It took me 4 days. So this book, Pivot, right? It's—

Yep.

Well, 4 days it took me to read this thing. And then get this, I got laryngitis. It's kind of a funny thing. I'm a professional speaker and yet 4 days of speaking into a microphone, I'm getting no energy back from a live audience and it just depleted me. So 4 days later, I had laryngitis for like a week. I will say this. The one thing that we do to create resilience is really important to me these days as a small measure of what we can each do to start our day. And so, do you have a start of day ritual? I'm going to share mine in just a second, but Scott, do you have one thing that you do at the very beginning of the day helps you build resilience? What's that?

I do 10 minutes of exercise and then I pray.

Yeah.

My prayer, I really, for me starting the day, it Sets my gyroscope for the rest of the day.

Yeah, exactly. For me, it's, it's a 10-second practice. I try to find something that almost anybody can do, which was the subject of my TED Talk as well, which is these 4 simple words to start the day. And those words are, I love my life. I love my life. And it is a prayer of sorts. It's an intention. It's how I want to feel. And I feel very much like all of us, regardless of what You know, we may be experiencing and how this virus has affected us or even will affect us. We've got to maintain that true center and whatever it is that you say, whatever you do to create that center, I think is going to help us all. So—

I'm Maine.

Yeah. Show notes will include links to Scott's book and website and all those things. So check out the show notes. Please leave a review as well. You can go to adammarkel.com/podcast, leave a review there or Email us at team@adamarkel.com with questions, comments, etc. But everybody have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your day, your evening, wherever you are at this moment around the world. Send a lot of love. Bye-bye.

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