God’s Guidebook to Business…as taught by an angel

God’s Request

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In the beginning was the Word; the Word was in God’s presence,

and the Word was God.  

John 1:1

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Creating the universe was a massive task and when God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested. (Genesis 2:2)However, while he rested God planned it as such that the universe would continue to grow and flourish.  To accomplish this, he designed it such that the universe and its trillions upon trillions of touch points operated in harmony, as one cohesive system and not a conglomeration of disparate parts.  Not only were all the parts and functions dependent upon one another, they were impossible to separate.  From the cosmos’ far reaches to the earth’s core, from the ordinary to the supernatural, from the esoteric to the mundane and from the seen to the unseen, everything and everywhere and everyone were integrated by way of a single operating platform. 

That operating platform is the Word. 

The Word is the universal architecture for everything…and everything is inclusive of mankind.  The architecture is not meant to be a secret, but rather God promised I will tell you things great beyond the reach of your knowledge. (Jeremiah 33:3) God does this in a book, his book, a book greater than all others. 

That book is the Bible.    

The Bible produces success for all who apply its Way.  For thousands of generations the Bible’s wisdom was one with daily life.  Kings relied on it to rule, farmers to farm, families to flourish and all who hungered to be all that they could be treasured it.   Its lessons are equal parts spiritual insight, motivational energy and pragmatic advice.  God desires the Word to be lived and enjoyed.

However, in recent times people have started to forget; in a series of tiny, unnoticed lateral drifts, peoples’ incorporation of the Word into their daily routines has weakened.  By the 21st century the everyday circumstances of human existence have diluted peoples’ reliance on the Word.  Deciding among the thousands of websites, car models, travel destinations, career paths, personal organizers, hair colors, single malt scotches, home models, retirement options, schools, personal trainers, text messaging, homework assignments, insurance plans, fitness gurus, medicines, dinner menus, clothing labels…you name it, there is a choice to be made, and in the process, diminishing peoples’ attention; weakening their connection to the Word. 

Without knowing how or why or even noticing when, work has become life and life has become work.  Busy-ness for the sake of being busy is pervasive.  The words Bible and work are no longer commonly paired; a far cry from the time when our ancestors understood the Word was basic to all occupations.

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God: They sell 150 brands of water, imagine that!  Moses had only one to part.

Catherine: People like their choices.

God: It is distracting.

Catherine: It is just water.

God: It is a symptom.

Catherine: The world is more complicated now.

God: Start with a solid foundation and complications find ways to un-complicate themselves.  People need help finding that foundation.

Catherine: God, they have plenty of help.  They are a clever people with their thousands of books, personal coaches, Podcast, tapes, videos, psychologists, Webinars, infomercials, seminars and every sort of how-to-thingamajigger imaginable.

God: They are drifting away from the Word.  All Scripture is from God and is useful for teaching. (2 Timothy 4:16)They rely too much on their own shifting perceptions. 

Catherine: God…people are working sixty hours a week and they don’t believe the Word is pertinent during those hours.  If I may be so bold, people don’t see how the experiences of Abraham, Noah, Moses, or even Christ relate to their own businesses and careers.  Times have changed.

God: Life…all life is rooted in the same universal issues; whether it is today or 10,000 years ago.  The formula is unchanged.  The Word will continue to be lived and re-lived forever.  It is dangerous to think that the Word is an artifact of a bygone era.

Catherine: It is confusing out there.  They are lost and they are getting tired.

God: Each helps each other and says to the other “keep on.” (Isaiah 41:6)

Catherine: There are fewer saying keep on.  People are bogged down with their own lives.

God: They seem to have forgotten that help is always available.

Catherine: There are so many who are confused.

God: That is why this story must begin here…begin now.

Catherine: A lot of help is needed.  Too much maybe.

God:  Do you not know a little yeast has its effect all throughout the dough? (1 Corinthians 5:6)It is time for something extra.

Catherine: What extra?

God: I have somebody I want you to work with.  He can be a bit confused at times; often slightly pig headed.  But he has potential.

Catherine: Who…what do you mean… wait…no…no…not again.

God: He is a good guy.

Catherine: No.

God: You learned much last time.

Catherine: He died.

God: That was by design.  Your only role was to observe.

Catherine: It was tough to watch.

God: Have you selectively forgotten that he rose again?

Catherine: Still, it was very painful.

God: I know, it was my Son.  But more is needed this time and I am asking for your help.  It is important; the connections are dwindling.

Catherine: Is he special?

God: No more, no less than all my children, which means he is very special to me.

Catherine: No dying this time?

God: No dying.

Catherine: Promise?

God: You have my Word.

The Prodigal Son

You have made known to me the path of life. 

Psalm 16: 11

Garden of Eden

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There was a man who had two sons.  The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the estate that will belong to me.’

Luke 15:11-12

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A poker game; and not even my poker game. 

Where I spend eight plus hours every day five days a week is the result of a poker game.  I wanted a career as a pro basketball player, a Nobel Prize winner, a musician or, ideally, as a wealthy philanthropist, but nobody was willing to hire me for any of those positions.  I would even be happy saying I desired a career as a business owner, computer programmer, a doctor, a train engineer, a zoo keeper or what I am, a banker.  Yet after all my years on the job, I am still hesitant to say what I do for a living is my career.  To me careers are for the preternaturally smart, goal driven types who by age twelve have started a couple of companies, formed charities and who ultimately attend an Ivy League school where they flame a burning need to secure a CEO position upon graduation.  They know what they want and want what they do.

I, on the other hand, have a job. 

This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it was not a choice based on foresight and passion either.  Like many of my friends, I studied just hard enough in high school, getting some good and some not as good grades.  College was more of the same.  I took the courses my parents encouraged me to take, with the only limiting factor being that class was not even remotely near the early morning.  I had fun at college and made friends while doing the things one needs to do in order to graduate.  Me graduating was not a big surprise; I just did not leave college with a conclusive career path.

For the record, however, it is not that I did not want a career; it is just that I had more pedestrian concerns.  My goal was to get a job that afforded me an apartment with enough money left over to enjoy a couple of beers with friends.  With such a pressing goal, the questions of what I should expect from life or what life should expect from me could wait.  I had time on my side and other priorities.  I was primed to take any opportunity that meandered my way.  My job search strategy consisted largely of asking friends if they knew of any job openings; a rather naïve strategy considering the majority of them were in the same post college, unemployed conundrum as me.  Thus, for good measure, I added a constant litany of prayers whose common theme was for some job, any kind of job, to cross my plate.  Through what I attributed to be divine intervention, a friend’s father was playing poker with the human resources manager for Old First Bank and discovered that the bank had a job opening.  Three interviews later I got the job.  

And that is how I landed at Old First Bank, the result of a poker game.  I thank the Lord that my friend’s father did not play poker with the director of human resources of a sewage plant.

Actually, this is somewhat of a disservice to the sewage industry, because my job stunk as well.  The job was in collections, which consisted of calling borrowers who either could not or would not make their loan payments.  I later found out the job had been vacant for six months. Apparently, harassing irate, stressed-out people who are delinquent on their loan payments is not many people’s dream job.  Nonetheless, it was a job, and I was grateful to receive a paycheck every two weeks.

Over time I moved through various jobs in different departments, eventually drifting into business banking, which at Old First Bank meant offering loans and deposit products to small businesses.  The division’s target audience was businesses with revenue between $2 million and $20 million.  Companies with less revenue tend to be too small to have any purchasing power and as such cannot afford to buy many of Old First Bank’s more expensive products.  Conversely, companies with greater revenue have too much purchasing power and know that dozens of banks would gladly want their business.  They regularly threaten to change banks unless pricing concessions are made.  Banks have gone out of business not because they made bad loans to unprofitable businesses, but because they made unprofitable loans to good businesses.  

Banking is a simple concept.  Via checking accounts, savings accounts, and CDs, banks take in depositors’ money.  Banks then sell those same deposits to other customers in the form of loans.  The spread between what banks pay depositors in interest and charge borrowers in interest constitute the majority of a bank’s profit; less of course operating expenses and write-downs from borrowers failing to repay their loans. 

As a newly minted business banker, the majority of my job involved prospecting for customers who were willing & able to both borrow and repay what they borrowed.  The job would have been much easier if only willing was required.  When it came to determining the able to repay portion of the equation, it was people in Credit Administration who possessed the supreme power to say yay or nay; ostensibly based on various financial ratios but more often their decisions seemed based on weather patterns, bio-rhythms or soggy tea leaves. 

My role in the approval process was to meld the contrary ways that Credit Administration and the borrower interpret the very same set of facts.  Applicants always believe business ranges from getting better to great, while Credit Administration leans towards catastrophe being around the next corner.  We jokingly said that Credit Administration’s motto was that there are only two types of borrowers, the ones who have already gone bankrupt and those who are about to go bankrupt.  On one hand, a banker must present a credit request in a positive enough light that Credit Administration will approve the deal - because a banker who does not book loans gets fired.   On the other hand, misrepresentation of facts has led to the bank booking loans that do not get repaid, which is also bad - because too many charge-offs will also cause a banker to get fired.  And one charge-off can be too many.  Learning to properly balance the competing dualities of being too precise and being too creative is something that is not taught by any book that I know of.

As time passed and I saw more deals I got better with the finer details of the duality.  A couple years back the economy was roaring, which helped me book a few really large deals and finish the year ranked Number One among the approximately 500 Relationship Managers.  The commission check combined with some pleasant recognition by senior management had me feeling good, maybe even a little invincible. 

Around that time, a headhunter called me about a can’t miss opportunity.  I was not even looking for another opportunity, yet she insinuated that I was stagnating, that I needed change.  She cleverly inserted how proud my mother would be if I were to take the job, as if it was some sort of family obligation.  There was a large bank pushing into our market that needed someone to head up the business banking department, and they would dearly love to hire someone with my experience.  Furthermore, they were offering a signing bonus and a lucrative commission structure.  I considered the signing bonus and lucrative commission structure very important furthermores.  The headhunter knew how to push my buttons and I did not resist them being pushed.

I was torn, Old First Bank was home, but this opportunity was very attractive.  I prayed for an obvious sign, like God calling Moses from the Burning Bush.  Instead, what reverberated between my ears was “more money…more money…more money…”  Now God may have been sending me a signal, but in hindsight I am pretty sure these words were not His. 

Exodus

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Some days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his property on dissolute living. After he had spent everything, a severe famine broke out throughout that country, and he was in dire need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country.

 Luke 15: 13-15

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It is not that I was unsatisfied at Old First Bank; rather, I reasoned that a change of scenery may be more satisfying.  And again, there was the ever-present allure of more money.  I liked the idea of more money.  With much sadness and nervousness, I gave my two weeks’ notice to leave Old First Bank.  It all happened too quickly.  I was done.  It was strange to suddenly no longer be an Old First Bank employee.  It was as if I had lost my identity.

Bank policy required that any departing employees with access to customer data immediately clean out their desks and exit the building upon resignation.  This is like closing the barn door after the animals have escaped.  Most employees have all the information they desire before they give notice.  I was prepared; I thought that I was set for good times ahead.

Moving to National Financial Corporation was exciting, frightening and weird.  I grew up at Old First Bank and knew every aspect of the bank; conversely I knew very little about National Financial Corporation.  But heck, how tough could it be?  I had succeeded in the past and fully expected to succeed at National Financial Corporation.  I knew the market well and possessed a long list of potential customers, courtesy of my years at Old First Bank; customers who I hoped would be interested in my new employment address.  This was possibly moronic optimism on my part. 

National Financial Corporation was one of the nation’s largest banks, with hundreds of billions of dollars in domestic assets, plus a modest international presence.  Compared to Old First Bank, National Financial Corporation’s product array was gargantuan; credit products ranged from billion-dollar syndicated facilities to, and I kid you not, $400 loans to buy cows.  In addition to business loans, it offered everything from home mortgages to escrow services to insurance to brokerage to treasury management to student loans to basic checking accounts.  You name it, National Financial Corporation offered it; almost too much to list and certainly too much to fully understand.

What I soon came to find out was offering it and offering it well are very different statements.  I would compare Old First Bank to a small garage.  It contained a limited number of tools that were always at your fingertips and there to help solve a limited number of problems.  National Financial Corporation, on the other hand, was like a giant warehouse.  It had tools for every possible situation.  Unfortunately, the warehouse was so huge that you could never find that tool when you needed it.  Navigating the maze of departments, systems, procedures, products, and what-cha-ma-call-its entailed calling one of the bank’s numerous 1-800 #’s.  There were so many 1-800 #’s that the bank set up a 1-800 # to help bankers locate the proper 1-800 #.  The notion of a direct line to a real person apparently went the way of the dinosaur - it was a thing of the past.

My job was to open a new territory for National Financial Corporation’s business banking division.  Even though I had plenty of experience prospecting and underwriting credits, I struggled to understand the different personnel, computer systems, processes, policies, forms, products, operation centers, SLAs (service level agreements) and cultural quirks at National Financial Corporation.  I was offered little training.  Like me, everyone around me was also new; so they could offer little insight.  My boss was located out of state.  It was a lonely world.

I called my old clients, setup appointments and made loan proposals.  For various reasons - pricing, structure, reputation, product features, underwriting criteria, turnaround times, secondary products, convenience or loyalty - not many customers moved to National Financial Corporation.  The clients that did move ended up dissatisfied.  Something always seemed to surprise them and me; a hidden fee appeared; a routine service issue took forever to fix; a system did not work as expected; product features were not as advertised; or simply no one called them back when they called the bank. 

National Financial Corporation fostered internal competition, eliminating any sense of teamwork among the bankers.  Uncover a problem and it was yours to fix.  Lesson being - do not uncover problems.  Unfortunately, the customers did not understand this lesson and continued to call me with their problems.  My time was consumed with resolving customer service issues that should have taken minutes to fix, but were taking hours and even days.  While this kept me busy, it was not getting me traction.  At National Financial Corporation, I was doing less with more.

Wandering

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Coming to his senses at last, he said: How many of my father’s hired hands have more than enough to eat, while I am starving!  I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against God and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’

Luke 15:17-19

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At Old First Bank there were prospects that approached the bank simply because they always had, an existing customer referred them, they heard good things, or their folks banked at Old First Bank.  Some bankers built their portfolios from these sources.  National Financial Corporation had no such reputation or history in my region.  National Financial Corporation never had the occasional ‘walk in’ prospect, repeat customer or company generated referral.  I therefore was constantly searching for any and all possible scraps of business.   After churning through my old client contacts, I resorted to cold calling from prospect lists. Cold calling is a tough way to earn a living; anyone who thinks differently…well, actually, I never met anyone who thinks differently. 

Essentially, I was a mercenary - a hired gun whose singular purpose was to bring in loans. My day was spent dialing for dollars.  My boss’s sole measure of my value was how many loans I funded.  During our weekly one-on-one tele-meetings, where I hoped to learn more about products, processes or anything of value really, all I got from my boss was, “How many loans have you booked this week?  What about next?  You need to make more cold calls.”  Thanks for the incredible insight and help…boss!

Then the economy slid into a deep recession.  It was a multi-faceted whammy that attacked businesses on several fronts.  As unemployment increased, consumers spent less.  As a result, businesses sold less.  Their financial conditions deteriorated, well below traditional underwriting guidelines, so the banks further reduced lending activity.  Then as bankruptcies increased and banks did not get repaid, banks tightened credit standards for even their strong customers.  Fewer companies had the ability to borrow and inject new funds into the economy, and the whole vicious downward cycle continued.  People were stressed.  Many were not so nice.  Life was a little ugly. 

Banking was ugly.  With the number of strong customers dwindling dramatically, it made it nearly impossible to bring them over to National Financial Corporation because their existing banks would do almost anything to keep them.  The marginal customers would not leave their banks either because they were hoping their loyalty during the good times meant something in bad times.  The only prospects willing to talk with me were those being pushed out of their current bank.  These companies were in trouble and even the most creative underwriting could not paint a healthy enough financial picture to get them credit approved.  They were not bad people, just bad companies.  Many went under.

Much to my dismay, the promise of more money that was fundamental to luring me to National Financial Corporation was in the form of a highly leveraged payout structure, consisting of a small salary with a tremendous upside in the form of commissions.   If I generated loans, I would make a lot of money.  If I did not generate loans, I earned diddly squat. Based on my Old First Bank production, I would be rolling in dough.  Unfortunately, based on my actual National Financial Corporation production, I was earning closer to diddly squat.  Eventually both the bank and I were a little resentful of each other about neither one of us making as much money as anticipated.

And, like my boss, I was beginning to tie my self-worth to my loan production, or more correctly lack thereof.  This was probably wrong in good times; but it was certainly more depressing in bad times.  I had no emotional connection to National Financial Corporation.  I was lost in all directions – career, ability, passion, purpose and money.  Life became a grind.

After more than a decade in the industry, I had expected to know more, to be more and to be secure with where I was in my career.  I never imagined my parents having the same issues; they always acted like they knew everything.  I presumed that by this point in my life I would be on cruise control, headed down the highway of steady promotions, with a comfortable retirement nearly visible just over the horizon. 

Nevertheless, there I was, feeling as clueless as the day I started in banking, still groping for a career, searching for answers to questions that I had not fully formulated.  My potential was being replaced with a sad actual.  I thought I had let my friends and family down.  Feeling isolated and frightened of my future, one evening I simply sat and cried, believing the walls of the universe were closing in on my life. 

Now intuitively I knew life was really not as tragic as I had mentally made it out to be.  I recognized and appreciated that I was not living in an oppressed third world nation starving to death.  In third world countries you do not have the option of watching too much television, eating junk food of every imaginable variety and gaining twenty-five pounds while stressing over finding a fulfilling career.  I knew things could be worse, much worse.  But honestly, if I need to compare my situation in life to life in an impoverished nation in order to feel good – well, I do not think that is great progress either.  Throw in the fact that I was neglecting my prayer life and I had created a dangerous imbalance in my life. 

Stress kept me awake at night and I was bone tired during the day.  It eventually became impossible pretending things at National Financial Corporation were going to magically get better on their own.  In the end, what remained for me at National Financial Corporation was not passion, was not a career, was not a future; what remained were the daily tasks of searching for customers so I could earn a paycheck.  That was not enough to satisfy me long term, and I increasingly dreaded getting out of bed each morning. 

I needed to move beyond the problem and start focusing on the solution.  My strategy of winning the lottery had not paid off, though on this point I still have hope.  It was time to get motivated.  I needed a new job.

Returning to Old First Bank was one option.  However, after leaving them hanging and trying to steal their customers, I had nagging concerns that I was not worthy to be hired back.