Ep. 50: J. Eustace Wolfington | Entrepreneur, Investor & Film Producer

Eustace: And now so i'm talking to these guys and i'm giving my idea And i'm saying the best part about my idea is you could never be out of equity A customer can never be out of equity And yet i'm going to give them payments lower than what they're going to get for 48 months So they were a little skeptical but they Said okay You got to go out and sell our dealers on the idea So for six months, no contract. No, nothing.

Tarek: I had to go out and sell dealers on this idea Welcome to y'all street today. I speak with Eustace Wolfington, entrepreneur, philanthropist, movie producer, and the inventor of car leasing. Eustace, would you like a cup of coffee?

Eustace: Uh, great.

Tarek: It sounds good. Thank you coffee.

Eustace: Cheers to you Thank you Good luck.

Tarek: Thank you, welcome to Manhattan. We have Y'all Street on Wall Street today We have a lot to uh, lots of cover for for those who don't know you You invented car leasing and I want to get into that But before we do, uh in my research prior to this podcast, I learned that your family Has actually been in the transportation business since 1876 So are we talking horse and buggy? You know carriages carriages so can you share a little bit about your family's history and I guess If if they started in 1876 your family came to the us prior to then at some point How far back does your lineage go?

Eustace: Yeah. Well My great-grandfather came to halifax uh from england His father was a ship captain And so they kind of settled in halifax And then he came to new york around 1870 Took a job working for a carriage building company And then decided to come to philadelphia and open his home And that was 1876 and uh I don't go back much further than that. Although I should but I don't uh And then my grandfather uh the Carriage, you know, they start cars came along in the 1900s As my grandfather started to build car bodies. They switched over from carriages to car bodies And they built car bodies all over the world the wolf wolf in your body. There's still something around And then the depression came along and that put that business out of business and My father became a plumeteer. They started, you know, plymouth ford became big and uh And then my father Died at the age of 48 um We had gotten into a uh hotel business down a place called avalon, new jersey We had a little resort hotel. We had I was one of nine children And so we all worked the hotel And I really wanted to become a hotel man Uh, in fact, I came to new york. I visited conrad hilton had a long talk with him and uh He gave me a letter to go to any hilton hotel. I wanted And they had to show me through the kitchen show me through the hotel just give me the car blinds treatment uh But then I got uh drafted in the service in 1953 uh Went to korea for About a year then we uh in the army. Yeah and uh And I got out in 1955 And Although I wanted to be in the hotel business. My father was in the car business And when I came out three months after I came out he died and so I kind of went into the The family business were you the oldest of the nine? I was the oldest son. I had an older sister Uh, we were six boys and three girls And the girls outnumber the men two to one They were very strong personalities, uh And then uh I decided When I was young my father I was at notre dame. I wrote him a letter. I said dear daddy. How could I be a success in life? Then he wrote me back a letter One of the few letters we've ever exchanged and he said uh Here's eight principles i'm going to give you if you follow those you'll be a success No matter what you do He said stay close to god He said uh Always be nice to old people because someday you'll be old And he died at 48 He said uh Whatever job you do in life do it better than anybody else He said never worry about money Because if you're doing the job better than anybody else money's going to come Then he said never forget your friends, uh when opportunity comes take it don't be afraid And that The principle had a lot to do with what i'm going to tell you next And then he said uh Always be sincere because people know don't know the difference And then he said Life's a hairline The decisions you make will decide what side of the hairline you're on So they were the principles he gave me uh, but they the principles Uh, i've followed them a lot in my life and they've helped quite a bit Uh The one about doing the best job, whatever you do Uh the one about when opportunity comes don't be afraid take it Because I broke out on my own at the age of 28 I got a little dealership up in a small town no money I literally opened the car dealership with no money. I mean not a penny. How did you do that? Uh I Had proven to the banks. I was pretty good at what I did Working for my uncle so uh I went to ask if I could get a dealership And of course, uh They had this dealership come up that only sold 60 cars a year was in a small town And they had 10 000 with the furniture and 15 000 with the parts in the parts department Uh So my I borrowed 5 000 for my mother 5 000 my stepfather to buy the furniture Uh, the bank lent me 15 000 to buy the parts And the bank gave me a line of credit What they called floor planning for 150 000 for the cars I'll never forget opening up that day and just kneeling down saying what did I do, you know?

Tarek: Yeah, because I didn't now did you have any employees or is it just you now?

Eustace: No, I bought a There was a salesman there when I took over who became a good friend, his name was billy wolf, uh And I had a uh Young guy who left came with me to be my service manager in the service department. His name was Bud Risotto, and we had, I think, three or four mechanics. But uh, when your back's to the wall, you do what you have to do, right? So I just couldn't leave till I sold a car I mean if it's two o'clock in the morning, I hadn't sold a car yet. I couldn't go home I'd be on the phone calling customers at two o'clock in the morning Committed to buy the car, you know So and I couldn't trade a car because I didn't have any used car money from a used car inventory So every time somebody came for a trade I had I found a dealer downtown Who was a good friend who agreed to buy my trades? Uh, or I would take it to an auction Because I when I was young When I was 16, I used to work for a guy We worked the auctions And car auctions at that time were really new in the business Which later on came had a lot to do with what I did in the leasing business but uh So I would get to know that when I went I we In those days the only way you could wholesale a car would be to Wait for some wholesaler to come in with a group to buy your cars Uh, none of the dealers use auctions and the manheim opened up an auction in 1955 I would get I made a study of all the people at the auction Who bought t-birds who bought Buicks who bought Cadillacs and I'd write it in a book. I'd go talk to them, take their name. So whenever I had a car going to the auction, I would call, and I have a Cadillac one. I'd call all the guys who bought cadillacs Because there were 64 000 used car dealers And 17 000 new car dealers and the only place to use car dealers had to get their cars Was either buy them from a dealer or go to an auction so When they got to the auction block They always gave you a number and you knew within an hour when your car was going to run So I'd tell them my car is going to run at three o'clock And I'd give them a story on the car Because when you sell a used car you have to have a story so I'd give them their story when they use cars so so they're all I'm doing with my cars.

Tarek: Give me an example of one of these stories. What would be like a typical story?

Eustace: Oh, you know someone on a car Uh, it belonged to a a couple You know, it was always a true story, but but it was a uh But I had to give them I you know, maybe Embellished it a little bit So so they so when they're buying that car they already had the story But they're going to go to sell it So I so I did I would tell customers I said look I can't trade your car I don't tell you what to do if you'll let me run it to the auction for you I think I can get you a couple hundred hours more than anybody else Which I always did which at that time was a lot. That was a lot because you could buy a new car You could buy a new loaded Chevrolet Impala for 3200 dollars 3200 hours that was the best of the line so anyways, so that's how I uh Got off the ground on the car business And then my father died young as I told you My mother remarried a banker Who was head of the Pennsylvania Company at that time was the biggest bank in Philadelphia And he said you should get a Chevrolet dealership Chevrolet was the hottest car on the street back then they had almost 50 percent of the market and it was ridiculous And uh But I had the same problem. I had my money and and and my stepfather was a banker And he never bothered to talk about money So I went to see the chevrolet his own manager Uh, this was a they had a beat-up run-down dealership. I mean beat up It had no used car lot It had one driveway down the side Uh had a storage lot for all the service customers and all the inventory Was could only hold so many cars But it's a Chevrolet dealership and I had a there was a guy who wasn't doing very well with it and uh This had to be a buyout a buy-in with a buyout So I went down to make a deal with this guy Uh, he said the chevrolet man said go make a deal with this guy So I spent the whole day and made a deal I get home that night and the phone rings And it's the guy from chevrolet He's saying you don't want a chevrolet dealership, do you? I said, oh, yeah, I want a chevrolet dealership pretty bad. He said no, you don't I'm, I know i'm kind of befuddled, you know He said didn't I tell you you gotta make a deal. I said I I did make a deal He says you just hit a ring on his finger I said no, he says you just ring on my finger. I said no He says that's a mason's ring Now you go back down there and he'll tell you what the deal is of course I'm coming to negate because I maybe hit a mess a hundred thousand dollars In my my dealership.

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Tarek: And just just so I understand so at this point the little dealership that you started with is starting to do Decently well well enough to where you have enough capital to go and look at a chevy dealership

Eustace: It was supposed to sell 60 cars a year And we got it up to 600 cars in two years so but but we were

Tarek: We weren't making big profits for right but that included everything from the auction and yeah locals and wherever you could drum up business.

Eustace: Yeah so I'm now going into the big leagues the chevrolet dealership but You know, my father used to say to me Eustace you're going to do everything the hard way And i've lived up to his promise so, uh, the deal the guy wants to make is that uh He gets all the profit for the first five years Some deal some deal I'm now married with uh four children And uh, but young and dumb Uh, this was supposed to sell 300 cars a year. They had a planning potential 300 cars a year uh We took it to 11 1200 cars a year uh but for the first five years You know other than You know a good living income for myself all the profits had to go to this guy uh Who added nothing to the business so that was 19 uh I bought that dealership in 1962.

Tarek: So you ended up taking that deal with him?

Eustace: I took the deal and for the first five years the first five years gave him all the profit by the way part of taking the deal was That this guy let me in with them. You're supposed to have To get a dealership Uh, you have to have enough money for all your inventories You have to have three months worth of expenses uh Enough money for three months for expenses uh For me you have to have enough money to cover whatever your receivables receivables are going to be and they had a formula And I would have had to come up with maybe a half a million dollars to get into the stewardship. Maybe 600,000 He let me value my used cars At 200,000 there were there were 60 He let me value so so I I he said to me You're coming in naked. The worst can happen. You should go out naked So I came in naked Uh But I knew I I knew how to sell cars and I knew we would do well selling cars uh so uh I'm selling a car one day to a friend of mine And uh, he said to me he says I can't afford this car And I said well jack He wanted him. He also had nine children And this was an impala wagon back. Then that was that impala was that car? He said what's the price on that car over there and he pointed to a bel air wagon I gave him the price. He said I can afford that. It was a monthly payment. He's buying things. I can afford that. I said jack That car is going to appreciate the cheapest car and appreciate 1500 hours more than the better car The better car costs more but a resale by Your cost to drive is a lot less He said useless the bank doesn't know that All the bank knows I have a selling price on a car and I have a payment They don't know anything about the resale value And it hit me like a ton of bricks That the biggest ripoff in america was the only way a person on the street could buy a car was was to pay price uh big big companies like general electric and they would all had lease programs with the factories and And and they could buy in essence by depreciation and they knew how to figure out how to get the best value, etc, etc So I wanted to take that concept to the man on the street So I started in my own little dealership right then I started I went over to the price on a window And the higher price card let's say it was four thousand dollars I put uh twelve hundred dollars And the next car was thirty five hundred dollars I put two thousand dollars and I put the sign called true cost the true cost of driving this car

Tarek: And what year was this roughly?

Eustace: This was 19? This is pretty this is right around 1963 uh and uh Because I did the auctions My whole mindset was on the resale value resale value resale value uh, and so I really Realized that you know, like like air conditioning Back in those days. Nothing was standard If you bought air conditioning you had to pay 400 hours Well that meant you had to if you're paying selling price you had to afford almost your payments So for that reason people didn't get air conditioning But in reality air conditioning on on trade-in was worth four maybe five Because to replace it in a used car cost that much And it wasn't original equipment So when I went to the auction and bought the car they would pay Pay up, you know So under my concept of by depreciation Don't buy price You could actually drive much more car for a lot less money and have lower payments So anyway, that was my concept And I did it for about a year and a half. I had one big problem No one would finance that deal that way So I had to get lines of credit I didn't have that much net worth So I was limited to how many cars I could do like that So right here in new york there was an operation called Kinney Kinney was a parking garages Uh that had been found up by a rosenthal family who were in the undertaking business and uh They would take the kinney rent car garages And they would lease their limousines out at night around new york and that was their concept But they decided to get in the car leasing business Steve ross Later became the head of warder brothers was it was the head of kinney kinney And they were looking for a dealer in philadelphia And and and what I would do that they would provide me all the financing And they would get me all the different kind of cars. I needed Like if I needed a Cadillac or a Buick But back in those days, there were two distribution systems They just the general motorist Distribute their cars through car dealers And through fleets And if you were a fleet you got better treatment than a car dealer Now, so I was learning. This is this new this new world. I was learning about and All you had to do was get a fleet number to be a fleet And that meant you sold X number accounts over five cars a year and that made you a fleet So I had more power than a dealership that they wanted six hundred thousand dollars a year for uh So that that enticed me to really get more deeper into the leasing business because now I wasn't just a chevrolet dealer I was an all-make car dealer so one day Uh, i'm doing very well And I read an article that a new company has just started called Chevrolet Which has been licensed by Chevrolet division Uh to use the name chevrolet To do big fleet leasing business let the dealers do big fleet leasing business and gmac was financing You know god's worked funny in my life. He's always worked people around at times around So the new sales manager of chevrolet is the guy who was the sales manager of kinney So I call him on the phone And I said look i'm a chevrolet dealer. I said i'd like to become a chevrolet dealer Uh, so can you develop you? And he said well, you know uses he said Chevrolet's in trouble Uh, they had ran into They were really totally mismanaged uh About 60 dealers that found in it. So there was no Real uniform management and they hired some guy. I didn't know what the hell he was knowing to run it uh He said if you had two million dollars you could buy this company Well, I didn't have 250 000 So I called I told you my stepfather was a banker Now in our family, we had six boys And you could cut a line to where the boys raised by my father And the boys raised my stepfather Literally, it was that obvious. I mean we're all the same personalities and things but The mindset was a little bit different so my brother started out as a training program at chase mountain bank So I call vince. I said vince I think the future the I think the future of the car business is going to be this leasing concept for the main industry And I said, uh, this chevrolet company is licensed by general motors Uh, it's backed by gmac uh And the secret of this business is financing so he got a friend that came down and looked just like he was like i'm not at the time i'm Let's say it's 19. This is now 1967 So i'm 35 um, my brother was uh Eight years younger than I was so he was You know 27 They came and all of a sudden they got interested And in those days the big investment banker in new york was kumlo and so Uh, we went to kumla with our idea uh They loved the idea General motors, you know, not our idea general motors, shall we? So they went over to gmac to talk to the head of gmac a man by the name of oscar lundin And they said to him, uh, look we don't want to back these guys If you're going to go into leasing yourself Now leasing at that time was like a tenth of one percent And the fact that the manufacturers don't get into anything goes five percent uh, so They said we'll never get in the leasing business And we're just yeah, we're going to finance these guys and we won't get in the leasing business When we took over chevrolet, it had a minus net worth of 25 million dollars Uh price waterhouse would not certify the statements And we really had to go to work So we had to reconstruct My my my my brother and his other guy were both bankers and that was their job to reconstruct My job was to go out to the 800 chevrolet chevrolet dealers in the country and And turn them around to our new concept and because they were Obviously turned off on chevrolet So it's obvious Kuhn Loeb was enamored with the name Chevrolet and General Motors. I was enamored with the name Chevrolet and General Motors Anyway, we did a great job. We turned it around got to collections. We got a phone call Ed kohl was the president of General Motors at that time and ed kohl was a A beautiful human being and a real a little bit of a wheeler dealer So we called And said We want to talk to you about something that we think you can help us out on What do you want to talk to us about is was that the rent car business Was a very important customer back then to the car manufacturers Because they looked at that as a test drive if they could put Their cars into their fleet as a test drive General Motors had owned hertz And they had sold hertz And when they sold hertz the deal was that they would market only general motors cars So whenever you saw an ad of any kind of ad for hertz that was a general motors car Lee Iacocca had somehow Going out and romanced the people at hertz and Made a deal that hertz Would now feature ford Whatever ford had to pay them. I don't know General motors wakes up and sees that There's only big three rent car companies back then it was hertz avis and that only two hertz and avis national was a loose affiliate of of uh, of franchisees around the country a dealer in chicago had bought international Uh to try and build it up a little bit Who was a friend of ed coles? So ed coles said we want you to buy national car rental He had seen the job we did with chevrolet And he felt okay these guys could handle this national thing This guy's ali frank the dealer from chicago came in uh He took us over to the gmac boardroom and he told us that We couldn't come out that we made a deal And by the way, I walked in that boardroom. There was a big picture of willie durant Willie durant was a founder of general motors And that's a story in itself also uh So but I was just to see that was but now i'm just still a young guy and I was really in the big gym They see you're still in your 30s at this point, right?

Tarek: I'm, so i'm 30 and you're getting calls from the ceo of general motors to come and buy one of the largest rental companies Yeah, and I and I was just a car dealer from philadelphia, you know Were you pinching yourself? You're like why am I the one that he's selecting here?

Eustace: Uh Well Well, we're now about a year and a half in the chevrolet, yeah, uh and i'd already Uh, we had moved to chicago where their home office was I already Was figuring what the hell am I doing here? You know, I mean i'd get up at night and look around and say what am I doing here? But he puts us in the boardroom And he says I don't want to have to throw you too much rope But don't you come out of here. Do you make a deal? So we got in that room and We made a deal We need a check for 35 million dollars Which in 1968 there's a lot of money an enormous money. So he sends me But we're in la la land because this is all general motors. We're just sitting there going along with the ride What the hell's going on? So, uh They tell me to be in go to detroit that night The night my brother was visiting jimmy ling I was like I had a flight to detroit I meet a hank croffer who was the financial the chief financial officer of general motors and uh He calls the guy from the bank and he says uh And i'm not sure the guy's President general motors bank, but he called him at home I said, you know, we have some young guys here that we like And they're that that that that uh, and he said they're gonna need a check for 35 million dollars Uh, and we're gonna need it tomorrow morning uh early Uh, but we're supporting them. We're supporting them. So my brother goes in They open the bank at six o'clock We get a check We signed we signed the note. It's actually signed in pencil and and off we fly to to dallas To make the deal When we get to dallas, uh, the guy from general motors calls my brother vince And i'm just walking in the office and he said, uh, you know vince we've been going over these numbers the seals I I think hertz had sold for like You know 150 million and this deals are like well over that uh uh We think we're gonna have to We want to try and back out of this and for what we'll do for you If you guys agree to back out of this We'll make you the leasing We'll call genway instead of chevrolet and you'll have all the general motors franchises You have all the bill general motors chevrolet, you know buick And you'll have our locomotive business and our boat, but you have our leasing business everything go through you But you might give you guys back out of this deal uh So we agreed to back out of the deal and uh And start a company called genway And we have to go out to every one of the divisions and sell them and sell their dear body and all that which we did And they all So now we're root company genway

Tarek: So you had converted chevrolet into genway the genway? Yeah, okay same company, but now bigger Backing in that's now at least an arm for general motors Uh, and that's the way we're it was put So following the settlement then well, what was the next step?

Eustace: Well, I was also I was also still a chevrolet dealer, right? so I had my chevrolet dealership and uh So I want an airplane And I was talking to the head of chevrolet's marketing And I was showing my new concept What they what they were doing in leasing in those days? You had a month in advance I'm on security Well, it's okay for big companies And they probably didn't have to put the one security up and they wouldn't If you if you took a lease You didn't at the end of the period of time you didn't get the profit if the car had a profit You didn't take the loss, but you didn't get the profit The program I put together I want I realized That if i'm going to make my program really really big with the man in the street Back then the attitude and feeling on ownership was so powerful If I said leasing to you, you shut me down You just shut me down because you believe in ownership so much The talk cost of driving Which is what was my story was the cost of driving? uh I had to make it like ownership I had to give you all the equity You couldn't have a month on security whatever you put down had to be your down payment so I had we had to design a program that Selling prices 40 000 You put down 20 Now you're going to finance 80 000 We have a two-year residual of 60 now, you're only gonna finance 20 000 But you're going to get options on the 60 000 If the car is worth more you got it. It's worth less. You can walk away If you want to keep it you can buy it for that so I Was just a hundred percent Like buying a car only better because you didn't take the risk You have more optionality more optionality. We call it the three options uh No, no, no, no one did so well in the uh mineral business Okay, so, uh As I got off the airplane As a flight home from greece A guy tapped me on the shoulder And again, i'm trying to sell chevrolet on why is this such a great idea? But the problem was chevrolet was a marketing arm. Gmc is a financing arm and there are two different worlds and Just because chevrolet liked the financing idea She may call this called the shot show. Mr. She may say So I got tapped by the shoulder and he said to me uh I heard you talking to the chevrolet guy He was also a chevrolet dealer from new jersey He said I have a company I'll be very interested in what you're doing He said can I call you in two weeks? Two weeks ago, he calls me This company wants to come down and meet me. I come down and make a presentation They might be back back up to new jersey And what this company is is a bank service company It was a company that was founded by a princeton graduate Who realized that cit uh had had and uh, cit and Uh, there's another one gamma c They had all the financing of the dealerships gmac Was also a finance before didn't have a credit company. Chrysler didn't have a credit company. Okay Uh, so he started This company and he went to banks. He said look you don't know how to go into the car business I'll push in the car business. All you do is put the money up. I'll arrange And manage the floor planning I'll i'll hold the dealer sales meetings helps out sell the paper. He said and you give us a piece of every deal and he Had like at this time maybe 250 banks in his program Uh, so they wanted my program to give the banks We called it autobus and uh, so I went with them we eventually put 50 50, uh banks in the business And uh opened a showroom here in new york What happened in 1980? In the 80s its interest rates Went crazy I mean at least they're so crazy that When a dealer financed the car for a customer The state laws would say you can't charge more than 11 apr And he's now paying 20 for his money from a bank So he had to pay the bank to buy the deal So I realized that I don't want to stay with banks who only wanted to buy paper I had to get with someone who wanted to sell a car as well as finance the car A very major turning point in the game for me Was when I went with Audible with yagan and the autobus was the name I had I went to yagan Was we're doing this with banks banks were going to finance in their market and At that time All the banks of the board said well, we're not gonna take a resurface of a car. Are you crazy? Well, yagan had owned uh, yagan was the company I went with with autobus They had owned a company called integrity insurance, which was an a-plus company And We were able to go with my actual real charts and get 15 insurance companies To agree to come together and combine and give a letter of credit to the banks If the car wasn't worth what I said it was worth they would pay That's the only way It's the only way I got my concept off the ground into banks

Tarek: So you may see how did that feel for you in that moment when?

Eustace: You actually got the green light from these insurance companies That was a big turning point right in your life in your career There's so many pieces coming together that I just didn't you know When you're on a mission You only see the end of the road, you know I mean, I never even thought about all these pieces. I had to put together if I had an idea I put all these pieces together. I probably wouldn't have done it uh Autobuses, i'm walking down the street one day in abalone And now interest rates are going crazy and i've come to the conclusion. You got to get somebody who wants to buy a owner car I sell a car as well as spending a cigar So I start to just talk to some factories and uh This guy said my nephew from ford motor company is coming in to philadelphia. I mean to abalone I said when he comes he said he's coming in two weeks. I think it's two weeks in my life So I said, okay When he comes will you call me? Sure enough. He called me. I said I said I said why what's he doing for motor companies? I don't know So he calls me. I said get out. I go down and meet his nephew His nephew's in the engineering department And engineers think a little bit different than salespeople So he said well I said I have an idea. I think we'll change ford motor company and he said uh Well, you're gonna have to write it up, you know before we have to have things you got to write it up I said look what I want to talk about. I can't write up. I said I got to talk to somebody So he said okay. I'll try and get you An appointment with the market manager. I'll call you in two weeks. That's the guy two weeks and uh He calls me two weeks And gets me an appointment Uh with the marketing manager link of mercury I meet with him I fly all the way out there He said oh, by the way before we start He said you have to sign a paper He said that any idea you give us and you present to us We can take it like it's ours forget that well, no i'm the guy that went for five years You know I said let me walk around the block I walked around the block. I said nobody's been able to do what I did With all my experience with shellway all my experience with the banks in business. No one could do it No one knew how to make this work. They just didn't know because there were certain adages and feelings There were certain things you had to build in your sales presentation And if you didn't have that in there, you wouldn't you'd never get off the ground with the lease That's okay. So I'll sign a paper And by the way the history of that was Forty was the big case On the variable windshield wiper. Have you ever saw that movie? And that was the history behind him making me sign That whatever I do They get it. Okay so He liked the presentation he said Got on the phone called bob roe and A guy named gordon mckenzie the head of link of mercury division said i'm gonna send a guy down. He's got an idea For you Now at the time the factories What happened in the car business, which I saw I knew was going to happen Was they kept going to long-term financing to keep payments down that was the only solution And what happened customers at the end of two years? It used to be you could only finance the car for two years the garbage Then he went to 36 months, then to 48 months. Now customers who wanted to trade over two years couldn't trade because when they traded they were upside down. They were more in the car than they wanted to work. And the car business went from like a 12 million car a year to a 9 million car a year. All because of that. And now so I'm talking to these guys and I'm giving my idea and I'm saying the best part about my idea is you can never be out of equity. A customer can never be out of equity. And yet I'm going to give them payments lower than what they're going to get for 48 months. So they were a little skeptical but they said okay, you got to go out and sell our dealers on the idea. So for six months, no contract, no nothing, I had to go out and sell dealers on this idea. Finally they called me on the phone on a Sunday night, I just got back from taking my daughter down to Mount St. Mary's, and they said I'm driving home and they said you have to be in Boston tomorrow at 9 o'clock. It's now 8 o'clock Sunday night. Luckily there was an 11 o'clock flight to Boston out of Philadelphia for some reason, I don't know why but it was. I arrive in Boston, no idea why I'm there. They had originally planned to give me a test market in New Haven, right outside of New Haven, which would have been a terrible market for me to start in. It wasn't a big dealer, it was a dealer I just wouldn't have made it. And they said well do you know why you're here? I said no. They said we're going to give you your contract. I said oh great. They said but you have to change your plans. You're now going to have a new dealer. We just had a dealer die in this market, now there's one dealer in the market and so now we can use this market and he's one of the best dealers in the country. His name is Bob Tasker. And he was really well respected by Ford. Whenever he did it they would think it would work. I actually know that name Bob Tasker because I grew up in Boston, just south of Boston. So it was Bob's decision and they had to go out and make a pitch to him. Well when I was explaining my program I always had a little flip chart presentation. I had to show visuals to get some of these concepts across. I had nothing. So I got to meet Bob Tasker and we're going to meet in the parts room. This is three sons, Bob, Carl, and David. And I have a man from Ford with me, he's like my handler, taking me around. And I make the presentation to them, mechanics walking in and out the whole time. And we're all done with the presentation and one son says, I have a headache. The other son says, I don't know what the hell he's talking about. And so I walk outside and I said to the guy from Ford, well where's my contract? He's like, I've got bad news for you. If you don't, if Bob Tasker doesn't agree to go along you don't have a contract. I said, I signed the contract with you. So I knocked on his door. I said, look, Mr. Tasker, I didn't come prepared. You have to let me go home and come back tomorrow morning. I'll take a hotel room away from the dealership, away from everybody, and I want to make a fair presentation to you. I had to fly home that night, get all my stuff, fly back the next morning, get a meeting room in a hotel, which I had done the night before. I had to hang all my charts around the walls and get everything set up right. And they came in, and so about an hour into the meeting, bam, Tasker's a big man, and he says, I see where you're screwing the customer. And the guy from Ford jumps out of his seat. And remember, I've been negotiating with Ford at this point for over a year, and with all their dealers and everything. But I knew what he was thinking, because this idea was so new, no one could believe they would do that for a customer. Give them the upside and the downside, take all the downside and give them the upside. They didn't understand how we had it insured. So I was able to answer his question. He said, okay, I'll go, I'll try it. So we had a 90-day trial with Tasker. And in the first 30 days, his mindset is, he's getting to like the program because I'm there working. I'm selling cars for him. I'm pulling credit statements out of the wastebasket.

Tarek: So you basically relocated to Massachusetts for 90 days during this trial period to help him get this kicked off the ground? Yeah, if I don't make it here, I don't make it anywhere. Now, what's the status of the contract at this point? Is it contingent upon him lasting 90 days? It's a 90-day contract. Got it, okay.

Eustace: A 90-day contract. Never forget the five years.

Tarek: Yeah, right.

Eustace: So 30 days in, I walk in, and all my stuff's out in the street. My signs are up in the windows, my computers, everything's out in the street. And I sat down, and I said, I'm not gonna take this BS. And then I said, you have to take this BS. So I walked back inside to find out what the problem was. And the problem was that it's hard for you to understand when you're trying to make a new concept work someplace. But because of our training and everything, and I'm working the dealership, people are coming to me for, the ad people's coming in talking to me, and people come talking to me. And he had one son there, Carl, who was like, he was like the brainchild of the operations. Not in sales, but just he managed all the financial statements, blah, blah, blah. And they didn't like all these people coming to me. And so, and I think they thought they lost the deal or something. They just, in a rage, he just throws everything out. So I sit down and I would talk with Carl. And I explained, you know, Carl, I came here with one purpose in mind, to make you a better dealership and help you sell more cars. And I said, I've done that, I've increased your grosses, I've increased everything in this dealership, I've increased your floor traffic. The reason the ad people are coming to us is because we're running our ads. Today, probably my best friend in the world is Carl Tasca, you know? And the Tasca family. But from that point on, it was a turning point. They were selling 600 cars a year. Small Seacock, small town. Two years later, largest dealer in the country, sold 3600 cars. Anyway, again, at the end of 90 days, they wanted to keep me there. And, but Ford wanted me now to go out to Portland. Now, Portland was a market where all the Japanese imports come in. And Lincoln Mercury, which was traditionally 5 or 6% of the market, was down to 1%. So they wanted me to go to Portland to see if I could do anything in Portland. In Portland, there was three dealers. So I went from one dealer, now it's three dealers. My organization was myself and another guy. Now, I have three dealers. Now, I'm going to add that three more guys to my staff. So we do Portland. Do a great job there, in spite of all the problems you had out there. But when the salesmen in Portland took a coffee break, it was really a marijuana break. I mean, I'm teaching guys.

Tarek: So just, if we could pause just for a second, so that I understand the nature of the contract. How is it exactly that you were making money? What was the benefit to you? And after the, say, 90 days with Tasker, and I'm assuming that they turned that into a permanent contract, but Ford still owns the idea. How did that all work? Well, at this point, remember the five years. It's like remember the Alamo.

Eustace: It's remember the five years. It's zero.

Tarek: So you're working for free.

Eustace: I had a 90-day contract. And I don't think it would have upheld taking the idea, because they hadn't used it worldwide yet. They don't use it in my test market. But I didn't even think of that, to be honest with you. But they came with another test market. And we did a good job there. Then they came with another test market. Now, we're going to have a San Diego. Now, there's six dealers. Now, we're going to go to L.A. Now, before L.A., though, they didn't want to restart L.A. until January. And it was done in San Diego, let's say, in May or March or June. So that time in between, they said, we have a shopping mall in Tarnas, California, that a dealer has trying to sell cars. He's not doing very well. In this interim period, why don't you go in there and see what you can do with it? And we'll pay you and your staff to go in there. So we did. It was selling like five cars a month. We took it to 60 cars a month, all leasing, all leasing. There's a hundred stories with each one of these things. I won't go into everything. So now Ford finally decides, with 22 dealers, that we're going to do one more test market in Dallas. And I'm saying, why are we doing these test markets? Why are we doing test markets? And I resented that. But in hindsight, it was the best thing that happened to me. Because even though I knew my program backwards and forwards, I didn't know Ford Motor Company backwards and forwards. I didn't know where all the wires went. Everything worked. And so I was able to, between Ford Credit and the sales divisions and their own little silos, and we were like, it's crazy when you have a new idea.

Tarek: So I know you have 10 children now. How many did you have at that time? I had all 10. I'm 50 years old now. So your wife is back home with the 10 children.

Eustace: Well, they're not all at home anymore.

Tarek: At that point.

Eustace: They're all gone. Yeah, we have an empty nest. But still, you're right. My wife, I was two weeks away. And every two weeks, we allowed our guys to go home. But you had to stay for two weeks, seven days a week. Seven days a week. But we're proving an idea. And this is the, I mean, I'd already proved it on small scales. This is the ultimate test. We eventually ended up in 18 countries. And we really changed the world.

Tarek: So what ended up being the economics of that deal? So as this program expands and Ford sees the benefit of it, and now you're selling many, many more cars, this becomes the basis of car leasing in North America.

Eustace: Well, I finally said, well, what happened was when I started with Ford, I was still on just a, when I went to Ford, I said, look, I'm 50 years old now. I don't want any more exercises in my life. What I do now, I want to know how it works. So I said, I know what it's like working with a factory. I learned that at GM. I said, whatever agreement we sign, we're going to sign a side agreement about what the spirit of this deal is. And it's the spirit of the deal is I have to have a 50% bottom line. So whatever I do, I have to have a 50% bottom line.

Tarek: What exactly were you to them at this point? You were a contractor? You were an employee? A contractor. You were just a contractor?

Eustace: I was always a contractor. Always.

Tarek: So you had your own company, your own people, and they were hiring you to come in and roll out this program.

Eustace: So while they did that, the first marketing manager I met at Lincoln Mercury now became the president of American Motors. So he had me over there. So he went right away, wanted me to go over there. And then General Motors Cadillac division wants to sign on with me. And then so finally a guy at Ford said, wait a minute. He said, we've got to do something about this. He says, we've got to make an exclusive contract. I said, you got me on a 90-day deal. And I said, but this time I was on a one-year deal. I said, I have to hire people. They're giving up their lives to come with me. They're making sacrifices. They're traveling. They're doing crazy things. And you got me on a one-year deal. I mean, I've got to keep moving. He said, well, what do you want? I said, well, I want a five-year deal. And I want that at the end of three years, you'll tell me whether you're going to finish, if it's going to be over after the next two or three years, there's an automatic five more. And I also have the right to get out at the end of five to five years. So we signed that deal. And so I literally, you know, if we perform. So we just, and then they bought us in-house.

Tarek: Were you still running the dealership that you owned at that time? So the dealership is gone at this point. Now this is exclusive for you. This is my life now. And at 50 with your 10 children at home trying to roll out this program, had you accumulated a fair amount of wealth at this point or were you still kind of trying to make it all work?

Eustace: I had not only accumulated a lot of wealth, I was, you know, hand to mouth at that age. Because the things I'd done, everything I would build on the five years concept, you know, other people didn't live up to their terms of their deal. The GM deal.

Tarek: This is encouraging to a lot of people listening who haven't yet even hit 50 and hearing your story and where it goes from here. It's never too late. It's just never too late.

Eustace: If you know, you're right. And what your fight is is against the infrastructure. When you hear about pioneers get shot by aliens, all my life I've been a pioneer. And when you're a pioneer, it's just a whole different ballgame. And a pioneer, you got to play to win. And when you believe in something and you know it's true, not complaining is not an option. I mean, it's not an option.

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Eustace: I made that deal. They called me in-house. Long story short, we're now with just Link America division. Now four divisions, as I say, we went in and then we took it first to England, then to Argentina, then to the Netherlands, then to Italy, then to France, then to Germany, then to Spain. Next thing I know, we ended up in 18 countries.

Tarek: So the economics of that deal exactly were what? That you were entitled to some percentage of the sales?

Eustace: I was like a law office. I got paid so much for my people and I had to have a 50% bottom line. Okay.

Tarek: But that was only in those dealerships that you were active in or any dealership that was running at the time? That was my deal with Ford Motor Company.

Eustace: My deal was with Ford Motor Company.

Tarek: Right. I just mean to say that Ford had multiple dealerships all over the world at that point. Right, exactly. And you were getting compensated not just at the dealerships that you were active but any dealership that was running this program?

Eustace: No, no, just where I was active.

Tarek: I see, okay.

Eustace: Yeah, it was a crawl, walk, run. I mean, we had to build it, had to build it. And then I sold the company in 2000, which I thought I was getting old. I was 68. And like everyone else, I have buyers in Warsaw now. I wish I hadn't done that. If you talk to anybody, anybody that worked in our company, like Ford said, they were all in Kool-Aid. I mean, the enthusiasm, the excitement, the belief, these people all had a purpose. They were changing the world. And they knew they were changing the world because we only hired people that came from the car background. So they knew what we were doing was changing the world. In fact, what I paid, what our people were paid, they were offered two and three times as much. I was limited to what I could pay, but my law office was getting so much an hour. And they never left me. I had a 5% turnover in 20 years.

Tarek: So Ford continued with this program of five-year contracts with your company. So when it came time for you to sell your company in 2000, what was the acquirer really buying? Were they just buying a five-year contract from Ford?

Eustace: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And getting an organization of highly trained, I mean, our guys were called catalysts, change agents. And what I had developed, what we had developed, we had a rule in our company, you couldn't use the word I. It was a $500 fine. So what we had developed, when you talk about yourself, you have to say we, period. So everybody had to say we, period. We had something else in the company. We did not have a type of organization vertical. It was horizontal. The man with the most responsibility was in the middle and concentric circles going out. So if you were what would be considered whatever in another company, at a lower level, there was no lower level in our company. Everybody was equal. We lived it. They knew it. We developed foundational principles by which we learned our business by. If you walk to my office today, you'll see 50 foundational principles hanging on the wall. And they became a language within our company. The first principle was thinking. Everything you do is your thinking. And as an organization, we had to all have the same thinking. Everybody had to be part of the process. The second principle was profound knowledge. Whatever your thinking is, you want to base it on profound knowledge. Profound knowledge is anything you know with certainty. Day follows night. Two times two is four. The third principle is results. Everything we do is to get a result. And there was no other reason to do anything but to get a result. And so you didn't just make a projection and set a goal. You set that goal realistically. And once you set it, you lock it in stone. And then you work back from there. What's going to get in the way of my getting that goal? In the car business, you set a goal of 100 cars a month. Okay, do I have enough inventory? Do I have salespeople? Do I have marketing? Do I have enough banks to buy the paper? You know, setting the goal is one thing, but making sure you get pieces. So they were the first three principles. The next principle is that every one of these principles is a TED talk. Once you talk to a person, you talk to a human computer. God gave us two systems. He gave us conscious and subconscious. And the subconscious dominates everything you do. And subconscious is programmable by everything you see, feel, and touch 24 hours a day. Your conscious mind, which when you look up what all the behavioral psychologists are telling you, we use 5% of our conscious and 95% of our subconscious. But everything is in the subconscious mind. That was a very important part for people to know because in sales, all your beliefs are in your subconscious mind. And you're forming beliefs every moment of the day. I'm forming things you would say to me today would resonate. And I prove to people that they're forming beliefs every minute of the day. They don't even know what they form. They're in their head very clear. They don't realize how strong the belief is. They've never taken their head to their mouth, which is a thousand miles. But even when they do, they don't realize how strong the belief is. That was just one principle. We have the principles of little things like don't kid yourself. Get out of your own way. TLC square. TLC square, what's TLC mean to you? Tender, loving care. Tender, loving care. TLC square is tender, loving care and think like the customer. Whatever you do, if you ever have a problem, just put yourself in the customer's shoes. Just think like the customer. So if you're going to say something, do something, how would you take it? And if you wouldn't take it right, don't say it. It was just a little principle. But, you know, we can make a TED talk out of that. The big picture, little picture. We tell the story about Conrad Hilton. Now he had a little hotel in Texas. Rented rooms out in shifts. Saw a picture of Walter Asturia. Put it over his bed. Rode around at the greatest of them all. That became his big picture in life. His little picture was all the things he had to go through in life to get to the big picture. Everything we do, everything we did in every dealership, every salesman. We made them look at his big picture every day. Why would you sell a customer half a car instead of a whole car? For his benefit and your benefit. The little picture is, okay, whatever little I have to go through to get to that point. We have the picture of wings of an angel. Whenever you're making decisions, whatever you have to do, get on the wings of an angel. Get 60,000 feet above the problem. Get outside and look in. Stay outside and look in on everything. Those are the kind of principles we had. And we had 50 of them.

Tarek: So you sell your company and what happens next?

Eustace: You know, I was watching this tape on this general who just wrote a book called On Character. General McAllister. He talks about how he was asked to resign because of something he had said about the vice president. And he tells a story about all my life I've been an Army man. My father was an Army man. I'm now the head of Afghanistan and everything. He said, what am I now? I'm nothing. Well, I didn't look at it that way. I was, you know, I now had, you know, some decent money. And so I started a company called Cabrini Asset Management. One of the reasons a nun came to me to do the movie. She saw my name Cabrini. That's not the only reason. But so I just decided I was going to invest my money. And live a life, you know?

Tarek: Was there a sense of loss walking away from the industry that you devoted your entire career to? Did you feel a sense of like a void of some kind?

Eustace: You know, I didn't even really sell my company. I let it get sold. What do you mean by that? I mean that someone came to us and I didn't really want to sell. But, you know, I had a lot of, I gave a piece of my company to all the people who worked for us. Owned a piece of the company. A lot of them started to retire. We're now 20 years in. We were at a point where we had made a good acquisition of another company. That really was the next leg of the journey. A lot of conflicting things came together. We're putting a character program together right now. And one of the platforms I built in is decision making. And I'm doing a lot of homework on the research on that subject as well as the common sense. And it's amazing what goes into decision making. And my father used to say to me, your whole life is going to be the sum of your decisions. I told you that on the hairline. I mean I knew that business. That was a business I knew so well. Nothing could happen I didn't have an answer to. I don't care what it was. I got an answer to it. I couldn't solve the problem. Because I had grown up in it. It was my life. Again, I said I thought I was getting old. And I thought it was time to just go out and get it solved. Start building something from when I pass on. I didn't expect to be 94.

Tarek: I'll be honest with you. So you started Cabrini Asset Management. And what was the initial focus as far as deploying capital? Where did you want to deploy that capital?

Eustace: I just, you know, my original was just to stay with the market. So I started with Morgan Stanley. This is right before the big market crash, right?

Tarek: Yeah.

Eustace: But the timing of selling wasn't good. I'd always seen 10% interest rates. Now it's 1%. It just was not good. Which got me in a little trouble. Because then I started looking for outside things to get into. Which I did. So I got into two or three other things. But primarily I always loved the investment side of it. And, you know, that's worked out for me.

Tarek: When I came off of the television show The Apprentice, this was in around 2006, I was introduced to these three young men who called themselves the Three Amigos. It was Alejandro Monteverdi, Eduardo Verasti, and Leo Severino. And they had just completed a movie called Bella. And Bella won the Toronto Film Festival. And I met Sean Wolfington, who's your nephew. And that's the first time I had come into contact with the Wolfington family. So this is 20 years ago as you and I sit here.

Eustace: You know how Bella happened.

Tarek: Well, I want to hear this story because it was interesting because I ended up traveling around with those guys a little bit. We did some screenings in Dallas in multiple locations and giving talks and things of that nature. It was a movie that I really loved. So was that the first film that you had been involved with? Talk about how that came to be.

Eustace: Well, I'm sitting in my office. I get a phone call from Sean. He said, I have three guys. They want to do a film. I want to go talk to you about it. So they come marching to my office. And we go back in our little conference room. These guys were the three scottiest looking guys you've ever seen. Alejandro had a big beard. Eduardo had a big beard. He had a beard and hair all over and dressed, you know. And so they come in the office. And, you know, Alejandro is an incredibly likable human being. You know, he just, he could melt butter. And so he opens his computer and puts a, I see a light. No picture, just a light. And I'm waiting for something to come on. And then he starts talking. And he starts talking to the script. Nothing goes on. All there's music. So it's all done. I said, well, what have you ever done? And he said, well, I've never done any big movies. I've done some shorts that I won awards on. I said, well, let me see some of the shorts. So he showed me one short. And I looked at it. I said, wow, this is good. I mean, I don't know anything about film. But I know good when I see good, you know. So he then said, I try to think as I'm talking to you. Oh, he said, I came to, I said, tell me your story. So I came to America when I was 17 or 18. I wanted to go to Texas, Austin, Texas, Texas U. He said I couldn't speak English. And I had about a 1.3 grade. So I couldn't get in. He said, so they told me I had to go learn to speak English. And then they said, yeah, learn to speak English. And then I reapplied and got in. So now when it comes to graduation, they pick four guys that are going to be directors. And I didn't get picked. He said, and everyone else has to help them do whatever they want to direct. He said, so I went to the guy. I said, look, I want to be a director. I want to do my own thing. And he said, well, we have no more equipment. You're going to have to go to get your own if you want to do that. So he hocked his credit card, went to New York, went to Panavision, said, I want to see the president. And the girl said, you can't see the president. And of course, I say, he melts butter. I think he gets disappointed with the president. And the president said, what do you want? He said, well, I want a film truck. He talked about it. I had $300,000 worth of equipment that he wanted to shoot his, whatever you shoot for your final work and class. And I'll stay for five minutes. He's off the elevator. And the guy meets him at the elevator and says, what do you want? And I starts to tell him. He says, listen to this crazy guy. I said, listen to this crazy guy. And I listened to him for two weeks. Two weeks. I don't know where that comes from. But it's in my life. So two weeks go by. And the guy calls and says, you got it. You got it. The day he comes to pick it up, it's 9-11. 9-11. He can't get anything. He finally gets a camera. He finally gets a camera. And he even had a shot of his shirt. I mean, it's just really, really, really good. So I said, OK, I'll pack the film. Now, remember back then, it was a lot different than Cabrini. We had a $3 million budget. So we shot the film in New York, which was great. We didn't have to worry about a lot of sets or any of that kind of stuff. You know, New York was the set. And we just. How did you feel when you saw the film for the first time? Well, like at this point, I mean, I like the film. But I'm looking at what we could make better.

Tarek: You're looking at the finances of it.

Eustace: Yeah, like when Eduardo was kicking around the soccer ball, I'm thinking, why don't we buy footage of him walking around the soccer stadium? It would make it a little more real. And when Nina goes home and she's coming back, no one tells the reason she was away. I said, why don't we make a hit? Why doesn't Nina say, I went back to take care of my mother? And I hacked my mother until she died. Now I came back. And it would give it a little more purpose. There were two things I wanted to put in. I didn't win that argument. Well, I didn't want to try and win an argument. I wanted to back Alejandro, whatever he wanted to do. So it goes on to win the Toronto Film Festival. So I'll tell you that story. We were not accepted at the Toronto Film Festival. And the reason we got approved was some woman saw the film. While the head guy at the festival was away, all the women got together. And she said, watch this film. Just write down what you think. Don't talk about it. And then we'll get together. And when he came back, they said, this film's got to be in. This film's got to be in. So they put it in. Wow. So we went to the Toronto Film Festival. We were nobody, nobody, nobody. Everybody's coming in, all the big stars. We're over the corner. And when we went, I wasn't even going to come back. To tell you the truth, I'd flown home that night. I wasn't even going to come back. So I finally came back for the drawing. And when we came back, they started third, second, first. And they finally said, Bella. And I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it.

Tarek: So for those who don't know or don't recognize the name, Alejandro and Eduardo went on to go do Sound of Freedom, which was a mega hit several years ago and featured Jim Caviezel. They also made the film Cabrini, which was a passion project for you, a beautifully shot film. I got to see it at a private screening. And can you talk a little bit about that movie, how that came about, and what that means to you?

Eustace: Yeah. Well, Cabrini, the reason I call my company Cabrini, when I was 23 years old, I lived in the city. I had to be at work at 730, so I had to find a place to find a 630 Mass. So I found a church called St. Donato's. I don't know a thing about Mother Cabrini. I walk in, I see a statue of this woman, and I just walk into the Mass. The priest said, we're going to have a nine-week novena on Mother Cabrini. He told a little story about her. So I said, I'm going to go with my wife. I said, let's go to that novena. So we went for nine weeks. Well, after going to it, I said to myself, wow, what a lady. I have to get to know more about her. So the more I learned about her, I said, I'm going to make her my, she was such a great entrepreneur, I'm going to make her my role model, my patron saint. I went around the world. When I was going around the world, I'd talk about Cabrini. Nobody knew Cabrini. Nobody. Not even the Italians. And, I mean, people in New York knew her, but they knew of her. And what was her chief accomplishment? Her chief accomplishment? She set out to be a schoolteacher. And that was at the age of 20 years of age. She had gone to a school called The Daughters of the Sacred Heart and got a great devotion to the Sacred Heart. She was asked to teach in a school for two weeks. That got to be two years. And she was asked to take over what became a foundational thing in her life, a place called the House of Providence, which was an orphanage run by laypeople for the church. They were taking the money for the kids' food.

Tarek: They were... She was helping many of the poor immigrants at that time in the country.

Eustace: Well, no. At that time, she wasn't an immigrant. Smallpox had broken out in her village when she was at 20, right before she started teaching school. So she and her older sister were like nurses learning about health care with taking care of all the people with smallpox. She taught at the school. And then they... She was so well-organized. Everything she did was so efficient. She just made it work. So the bishop asked her to take over this House of Providence, which was being run by laypeople. Not to take it over, but to go in for two weeks and give them back a report of what was happening. When she got in there, that turned out to be six years. And it was six years of purgatory for her because Mother Cabrini wanted to be a nun. She had applied to three orders. Because of her weak health, she got turned down at every order. So now she's in this House of Providence and the bishop said to her, if you stay there, I'll let you form an order of nuns. So she started her own order. And finally she kept telling the bishop how bad things were. And they finally saw she was right and they agreed to close it. So she came out and started her own order. And that's when she started with the orphanages. I mean, that was an orphanage. So that's where she started working with them. We're going to watch a clip right now. If you're little children, this place will eat you alive. You're under arrest. Even the Pope cannot protect you from what may come. You have to learn to face your fears. Who the hell do you think you are?

Tarek: I am a woman. And I am Italian. We are all the same. All human beings. Children of God.

Eustace: I believe I am being threatened by a nun. Most of these Italians are already Americans. You have an election coming up, do you not? And I thought you were new at this. I am a woman. And I am Italian.

Tarek: I believe that a small gesture of love can change everything. This is a wonderful movie. I encourage everybody to go see it. And before we wind down, I want to do two things. First of all, as a guest on Yall Street, everybody gets a complimentary Yall Street silver round that you can put on your desk. So thank you very much for joining us here today.

Eustace: Oh, well, thank you so much. That's a great idea. And I want to... You want to tell everybody the history of Yall Street?

Tarek: Well, yeah, it's the migration from Wall Street, where we are today, to Texas. Texas is now the eighth largest economy in the world, the Texas Triangle, between Dallas and San Antonio and Houston. And becoming a major financial center. Just released the new Texas Stock Exchange and Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley. Everybody's moving down to Texas. So we refer to it as Yall Street. That's right. I want to close with just an opportunity maybe for some advice. You started the podcast talking about just the great lessons that your father left for you. Right. You're 94 years old. You have 10 children. Is it 33 grandchildren? How many grandchildren do you have? 33 and seven great. And seven great-grandchildren. What do you want to say to them? What are the final pieces of advice? Not necessarily business, but just in life. If you have one message that you want to give to them before you leave this world, what is it?

Eustace: Well, I've already given them a lot of messages. We have a thing called the dining room table. We get together once a year, all the grandchildren. And we give them assignments two months before the meeting. Like one year we did Helen Keller, another year Mother Teresa. And the whole first half is to talk about the philosophies and the way they should be thinking in their life. And then the second half we talk about different ways they can develop themselves. What are the schools they want to go to for math, or this or that, et cetera. And have them play out, role play, put together a little business and do things like that. I guess my father's first principles, the only principle, if you had to leave one thing, and that's just stay close to God. We have a thing in our character program. You're born, you live, and you leave. The main thing is to focus on the leaving. And the living. But the living leads to the leaving. You know what I'm saying? If you don't live right, you don't leave right.

Tarek: I like that. If you don't live right, you don't leave right. Maybe we end on that one. Eustace Wolfington, thank you so much for joining us on Yall Street.

Eustace: Okay, thank you.