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Empathy in Action: Balancing Financial Success and Community Service with Shannon Stewart

Connect & Collect Podcast - Season 2, Episode 17


In this episode of the Connect and Collect podcast, host Michael Pupil speaks with Shannon Stewart, Collections Manager at Southland Credit Union, about balancing financial success with a purpose-driven life. From his charitable work with Helping Hands Giving Hope to his insights on financial literacy and intentional communication, Shannon shares how collections can be a platform for helping others in tough times. Discover actionable takeaways on fostering human connection, supporting underserved communities, and aligning your work with a higher purpose.

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Skip Ahead

  • 00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
  • 02:51 The Importance of Charity Work in Collections
  • 06:34 Balancing Financial Success with Altruism
  • 08:53 Engagement in Community and Charitable Organizations
  • 11:45 Financial Literacy and Education Initiatives
  • 13:39 The Car Chronicles: Empowerment Through Storytelling
  • 14:58 Empathy in Collections: A Personal Approach
  • 20:02 Transforming Lives Through Understanding and Support
  • 24:15 The Human Element in Collections
  • 30:04 Understanding Financial Struggles
  • 34:24 Recognizing Your Gift
  • 40:40 Connecting People for Impact
  • 46:48 Living in Victory

 

Read the Transcript

[00:00:00] Host: Welcome to the Connect and Collect podcast brought to you by Lexop. Connect and Collect is a podcast created with the credit union professional in mind. Our goal is to bring you the latest innovations and trends in the industry by speaking with incredible credit union leaders so you can hear what's happening at the ground level.

[00:00:21] Host: Here's your host, Michael Pupil, Vice President of Sales at Lexop.

[00:00:28] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: All right. Welcome back everyone. Season two, episode 17 of Lexop's Connect and Collect. My name is Michael Pupil. I'm really excited today to introduce today's guest, Shannon Stewart, who is the collection manager at Southland Credit Union. So a quick little bio with Shannon, who has had a storied career spanning over 20 years and stands as a luminary in the financial arena.

[00:00:52] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: His leadership legacy is underscored by his pivotal roles ranging from executive positions to directorships with influential financial [00:01:00] establishments. His consulting expertise is underscored by his tenure at the fifth largest credit union in the United States, as well as his instrumental role in guiding fintech startups through crucial series A, B, and C funding phases, something that I personally know how challenging that is.

[00:01:17] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Beyond strategy and management, Shannon possesses unparalleled skill in infrastructure development. He's masterminded the inception of eight different call centers nationally and innovated five new business units, ensuring seamless process and operational brilliance. And as a business process consultant, Shannon's commitment to nurturing talent shines, providing invaluable mentorship across diverse sectors.

[00:01:38] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Most importantly to him, outside of the confines of corporate halls, Shannon's civic spirit is evident. He serves dedication, with dedication on boards like the YMCA, Meals on Wheels, the African American Credit Union Coalition, Helping Hands, Giving Hope, just to name a few. Shannon, you can tell me the ones that I've missed in a second.

[00:01:58] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: What he does best is [00:02:00] balancing gravitas with camaraderie. And Shannon also cherishes golfing rounds with peers and colleagues. And as a personal antidote, I also know that he loves to share a delicious cigar from time to time. And I've had the experience doing so. Shannon Stewart, welcome to Connect and Collect.

[00:02:14] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: It is good to see you again, sir.

[00:02:16] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Man, I was trying to figure out who the hell you were talking about, because I was like, who was he? I was looking around. Did somebody else come in?

[00:02:22] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: It's good to see you as well.

[00:02:24] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Yeah, I can't take credit for it. I'll, uh, I'll thank the, uh, the UCC group, which you're also involved with, which we'll talk about a little bit later. And that was the, uh, the bio that I thought was not anywhere better written for somebody that, uh, that I've spoken to before. And so Shannon, we go back a little ways and it is always great to chat with you.

[00:02:43] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Thank you. It's good to be on, man. It's good to see you face to face.

[00:02:46] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Well, I'm going to start in a little bit of a different space. Typically I start with questions surrounding, you know, the career and their progression. However, knowing you the way that I do, I know that the charitable work that you do is, is [00:03:00] so pivotal and high up on your priority list.

[00:03:03] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And so aside from just talking to everybody about what your role is at the credit union, I would also love to understand how that led to the amount of charity work that you do. So throw that your way.

[00:03:14] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: You know, that's, that's an interesting question. And I've, I haven't been asked the question in that fashion and format before. And it's interesting because being on the collection side, you see the worst, right? You see the worst of the worst.

[00:03:25] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And, you know, it's funny because the service aspect is what drives my life. Like, that's really what I do. I, I'm grateful for Southland Credit Union. I'm grateful for my time in the financial services sector. But really what I do is I serve others and collections provides me an opportunity to do that in two facets that provides me the experience, in which to help people and help them walk through adverse and tough situations. But it also gives me a mindset to know that there's people in.

[00:03:53] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I always say this, that if you, if we traded problems, if you traded problems with someone, you'd probably quickly pick yours up. And so that's [00:04:00] kind of where it started. Um, years ago when I worked at a FinTech and, um, we were a FinTech startup and I think you guys may have done business with them.

[00:04:09] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And I built the call center there, the call center, the collections facet, everything. And I took the very first phone call there. Because I built the call center, right? So I remember talking to a guy, I'll never forget, he had 138, 000 in debt. His monthly loan payments were like 4, 000 a month. And we couldn't give him a loan.

[00:04:27] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And I really started thinking about, like, wait a minute, if we can't give this guy a loan, where are we missing it? Like, what, what really, what's the state of the consumer that they're this much riddled with debt and we can't give them a loan? So let me look at the people that we're saying no to.

[00:04:42] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And I started looking at that, the nonprofit that I founded after getting let go from that organization, and you know, that, that's how startups work, right? I mean, I think you, uh, you know, Mike, you'll talk about this, that, you know, you'll go into a startup with a dream and a vision and you'll be like, Oh, I got all of these shares.

[00:04:56] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Yay. And like the shares are worth, like they're [00:05:00] worth the paper it's written on, but you're like, oh, I'm going to be great. I'm going to be, I'm going to be rich. I'm going to be this titan of industry. But I founded Helping Hands Giving Hope, right after leaving there, you know, I went through just a really dark time.

[00:05:09] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I, uh, I left there January 28th, 2015, found out, April 30th, 2015, my mom was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. Didn't work for two calendar years. And then, you know, during that time, you know, looking for jobs and interviewing places, it just wasn't the right time, you know, whatever your faith affiliation is, just, it wasn't the God appointed time for me to find a job.

[00:05:31] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: So it allowed me to spend time with my mom until she passed away in February. And, um, you know, but Helping Hands Giving Hope, we do financial literacy, financial wellness, mentorship, civic awareness, and we serve the underserved. It started with us serving the homeless, but now it's just serving those that are underserved because need exists everywhere.

[00:05:48] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so, you know, I think the idea of a credit union now around it about by saying this is, is, you know, altruistic in itself, you know, the setup of a credit union as a co op is not run by a stuffy [00:06:00] board of directors that's run by the people.

[00:06:01] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Yeah.

[00:06:02] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: To meet the needs of the people. And so, you know, I think it goes hand in hand with some of the things that I do outside of the four walls of the credit union.

[00:06:10] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: I love it. So much to unpack there. First, I think, uh, time well spent with mom. Uh, so I have a similar scenario with my father. And time well spent with Dad before, before that day. The second piece is, I think I've also learned. And many probably already knew this, I had to go through a couple of early experiences that if you're chasing the money and you're chasing the idea of being rich, you are going to be running for a very, very long time.

[00:06:37] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And so if that is the goal, you're probably not going to go down a path of altruism or a path of serving others, which I think is a far more noble path to fix.

[00:06:47] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: You know, so real quick, it's because when you say that it stands out to me, I sat with a leader of one of the largest financial institutions in the country. I remember sitting across the table from myself and a bunch of others that [00:07:00] we all worked together and he said this, and I'll never, it's burned into my brain. It was in 2014. I'll never forget it.

[00:07:05] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: He says, I don't give an F about you guys or this vision. Just give me my money back. And I was like, Whoa. Mind blown. And so, you know, when you say that, it's I mean, and this guy is worth billions with a B. But he didn't care about the altruistic vision. He just cared about getting his money back.

[00:07:23] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Yeah,

[00:07:24] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Now, for me, it's, it's, it's moved into like, all right, it's a fine balance, right, on the collection front, because I have to still manage, you know, loss prevention and loss mitigation, but also manage how do we serve people.

[00:07:36] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: A hundred percent. There are different forms of wealth. Money isn't the only form of wealth that you can have. And so I agree. I think, uh, look, if the goal is just to have money, anybody can go and make money and there's lots of different avenues for you to do that. But if the goal is to serve people, success will ultimately follow.

[00:07:55] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And more importantly, I think you surround yourself with like minded individuals that all, you know, [00:08:00] Push in the same direction. And that makes things incredibly rewarding, just like helping hands, giving hope, the financial literacy side or serving the underserved, which by the way, for those that are listening, you may hear a theme, this is the third or fourth, you know, a podcast that we have that serving the underserved is an underlying mission of the individuals that we're talking to.

[00:08:20] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And I don't think that that's by accident. I think that that is part of the culture and the DNA of what makes you special. And collections professionals within credit unions. I think that, that seems to be a theme that can't possibly be scripted or, or by accident. So I love it.

[00:08:38] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Now, aside from Helping Hands, Giving Hope, you're also involved heavily in the YMCA. There's a number of different, um, you know, charities that you're, that you're, that you're working with. Talk to us a little bit about some of those, uh, endeavors that you have.

[00:08:52] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: So, here's what you guys might not know. I'm from Compton, California, born and raised. It's interesting because I didn't grow up in an environment that had a [00:09:00] YMCA. As a matter of fact, I learned how to swim about two years ago at the YMCA as the chairman of the YMCA board, as crazy as that sounds.

[00:09:08] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so my goal as chairman was to figure out how do I expose others to the YMCA that I didn't have access to.

[00:09:15] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Yeah.

[00:09:16] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so that now it's building, I believe this, any organization that I'm involved with should be accessible to people that it normally is not accessible to. So cough shouldn't be a factor. So what can we do to better serve?

[00:09:30] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Need in itself is uncomfortable. So it's very, if, if you are financially secure and in a great financial position and you come across people that aren't, that are homeless. I mean, those of us that live in Los Angeles County, it's the largest homeless population in the world, you know, oftentimes people turn their eyes and close their ears to the cries of the poor.

[00:09:49] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: It's a lot easier not to look them in the eyes, human beings and say, All right, what do you need? And how can I help address the need that you have? Whatever that need is. That's tough. So it becomes easy, increasingly easier to [00:10:00] give to organizations that you don't have to see need.

[00:10:03] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: But on that front. You don't see where the money goes either. So you don't know if the needs are being met.

[00:10:08] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: To answer your question, honestly, and succinctly, I'll say this, I will say that, most of the organizations that I partnered with, they have some overlap. You know, Helping Hands, Giving Hope, we do a ton of things. We support YMCA, interests and YMCA benefits, but also the YMCA supports all the things that I do.

[00:10:23] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I also, you know, sitting on the board of Meals on Wheels, it falls into the underserved because the older people, which is, you know, 90 percent of the Meals on Wheels recipients are underserved. They're food insecure.

[00:10:34] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: So how do we help meet that need? But also on the flip side, the credit union helps serve those that are financial services insecure because we don't, we never talk about that. We never talk about the lack of financial services available to a number of underrepresented communities or marginalized communities.

[00:10:50] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so if, if we're really want to talk about, all right, how do we be of impact? Will we be of impact through education, through empowerment by providing information, but also [00:11:00] through empowerment by providing services that by all intents and purposes, may not have been provided previously.

[00:11:06] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: So I got to ask you a question, the financial literacy or education, I think is a hallmark for most credit unions, if not all to try to engage members to have them become more literate, understand things like interest rates, you know, what's happening in the market, understand financial products, because in the wrong hands that could be devastating.

[00:11:27] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: I think everybody knows the experience and maybe some of us have lived it where your first credit card goes, boom, because you, you just live on credit and, uh, unfortunately that pops pretty quickly as a younger person.

[00:11:38] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: So how do you engage and how successful, like, what do you do in order to pull that in?

[00:11:44] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Because from my perspective, it has been difficult to get the individuals who could benefit most from financial education, engaged in financial education. So is there a program that you guys have, or is it just constant outreach? Is it leading by [00:12:00] example? And then that's what draws people in? I'm curious as to how your approach is for, you know, getting people involved in that financial education side.

[00:12:07] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Cause I think it's wildly important.

[00:12:08] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: On the Helping Hands Giving Hope site, we run workshops. So through our partnership with the YMCA, we run workshops. You'll come, you'll ask questions. But part of that is, is it's this idea of being an ambassador of that which you believe. And being the spokesperson from that which you believe. You know, I think I've been pretty open about my Championship or being a champion of Lexop and the services that you guys provide.

[00:12:30] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I'm that way with the financial services piece. There were, I am now the go to people will call, Hey, I have some questions. I have this person. I don't know who else to reach out to. Okay. Have them reach out to helping hands, get me help figure out how we can help them. You know, who can I put them in touch with, whether it's credit, what if I have a person that, uh, I got buddies that are, you know, loan brokers, they may call me from time to time and say, Hey, look, I got a, um, a lady, she's a single mom, recently divorced, you know, her credit took a shot because she got divorced and we need help.

[00:12:55] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Well, I got somebody that can help her with credit repair or, you know, or kind of help to [00:13:00] point her in the right direction. You know, Hey, I got a person that, you know, they're divorced and they need a car. Okay. Let me put you in touch with, um, this person over here. That's a, an auto broker, you know?

[00:13:09] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: So it's being a resource to being a resource to where, when you can be a resource,

[00:13:13] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: So I'm going to, I'm going to mention the name of something and then you're going to have to give the listeners a little context to this, but is this what led to the Car Chronicles or the reason why you did this and, and tell everybody what the Car Chronicles is because I know about it, but coming from you.

[00:13:29] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: You know, the Car Chronicles, it started as, as I began this kind of speaking journey, you know, as, as sitting on a board, particularly as a time once I became board chairman, it's, you know, being out in the public eye and, and you know, the car chronicle and then empowering, motivating, inspiring.

[00:13:45] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And a buddy, I would do these videos on Instagram, and a buddy of mine said, Hey, you should, you, what is that? Like the Cadillac Chronicles, the car chronicles, you should, you should just do something like that. It's a minute and a half snippets. And it went from that to then being a podcast. Now it's a podcast with, with [00:14:00] people that I love and care about. And we do two things, three things in the car chronicles.

[00:14:05] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: We, encourage, we empower, and then we embrace. You know, when you see people you love and people you like, you hug them, you embrace them, you make them feel good. That is my goal in life. Every, every interaction that we have with each other, you should always lead at the end of that interaction, leave it saying, I feel better than I did when I got there.

[00:14:22] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And we, we miss that as human beings. You know, taking it back to the collection front, the collections is not a sexy job. I mean, I don't think anyone that does collections, October 20th, 1997, when I sit down at Wells Fargo Bank and took my first collection call, I prayed to God above, please don't let this person answer the phone. And they didn't.

[00:14:40] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: But the second call, the person answered the phone and cursed at me for five minutes. So, you know, it's not a glamorous job. It's not a sexy job. It's not a job that gets a lot of, uh, I always say that it's not a problem until it's a problem. It's not a job where you get a lot of accolades.

[00:14:55] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I mean, lending gets a ton of accolades and people are like, Oh, our lending team [00:15:00] did this, or our lending team did that, and they did this. But, you know, what about the people that we had to help? What about the people that, you know, the fraud that we helped detect or things of that nature?

[00:15:09] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so, you know, it led me to finding fulfillment outside of the credit union space through a lot of these nonprofit ventures. And then that kind of leads my life now.

[00:15:19] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Yeah, well, I can speak from experience. We've had the pleasure of meeting a number of times face to face every single time I walk out of there, the cheeks are kind of sore because we're laughing, we're smiling, we're having a great time together. Um, and man does a time fly by fast.

[00:15:34] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: But I love how you position the lack of the accolade side of things. There are some credit unions that we work with, where the leaders recognize that just like you, to try to motivate the team. Because very rarely does a collections department get a call from somebody or a member and says, just wanted to let you know all my bills are up to date and just wanted to wish you a great day. Hope everything is going well. And then hang up the phone.

[00:15:57] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: I don't think that happens very often, if, if [00:16:00] ever, unfortunately. So I think, you know, taking the approach of recognizing the team internally is really important. It's obviously important for you. Every interaction, if we're training individuals that you're leaving happier than when you walked in, if that is the best practice going forward from, from conversations, I think that is a, a wildly, so simple, it's brilliant.

[00:16:22] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: If I had a different way to position it, like it seems so intuitive, but not everybody or every entity conducts themselves that way. And so imagine what life would be like if it was.

[00:16:35] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I will say this though, because collections, you know, we work for credit union, right? And so it's not like we work for a bank and we're beholden to shareholders. We were, it's not black and white. Like, so dealing with people in the credit union, since it's not black and white I stress that to my team.

[00:16:51] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: It's not in our interest to repossess cars. We're not in the car business. The car finance business. It's completely different. I'm not in the real estate business, I'm in the real [00:17:00] estate finance business, we're not trying to foreclose on properties.

[00:17:03] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And when you start looking at that, from that every person that you interact with is human, they're going through something, and you approach it from that vantage point, your goal should be to let me help them get out of this. And it's not like everybody's gone through something. You know, some people aren't.

[00:17:18] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: You know, I'm looking at a, the often repossessed Dodge Challengers. I, my, my son asked me that one day, he goes, yeah, what do you repossess most of? I was like 3. 5 liter V6 Dodge Challengers, or Dodge Chargers. Like you get a ton of those. Kids take them, they, they get parts from the local automotive store, they fix them up themselves, you get them and they're worth nothing.

[00:17:36] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Like I'm looking one on the screen now. It's a 2021 Dodge Challenger with a 60, 000 current balance.

[00:17:42] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Modifications.

[00:17:42] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Yeah. So when you start thinking about it, everybody's going through something. If I got you on the phone, what's, what does it benefit me to, to have this hard line with you? I just like the jerk, and that doesn't make me feel good. So I might as well just figure out how, how can I help you? Let me listen to you. Let me [00:18:00] figure out what's going on with you.

[00:18:01] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: well, are you in a position that you can share a story that you or your team made that, you know, has a, you know, a tough situation with potentially a happy ending or a mutually beneficial, or is that one of that you're staring at on screen at

[00:18:15] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: no, this guy here is not, he's not, he's not one of those ones. We're gonna, we're gonna pick his car up, we're picking his car up as soon as possible. But, you know, I had a lady recently, yeah, she'd been sick, and, uh, been in the hospital. She'd been hospitalized. That's why she hadn't paid us in four months.

[00:18:31] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: When she, like, she was hiding in the car, she had, like, a, some kind of brain aneurysm or, or brain issue, and she called, and she's like, you know, I don't want you guys to repo my car. And I think they put the car out for repo just because we hadn't seen her, we hadn't talked to her.

[00:18:44] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: We, we had had somebody go out and do a field, uh, chase and knock on the door, got nothing. I was like, there's no way I could repossess this lady's car. No way. I would let the lady slow pay until I no longer worked at the credit union before we picked up her car. We just, we just wouldn't do it, it just doesn't make sense.

[00:18:58] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: But that's what a credit union [00:19:00] does. And so it's helping her get back on track.

[00:19:02] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Alright, let us figure out how do we help you get back on track. You know, how do we take some of these high interest credit cards that you have and maybe we can put you in a, personal loan. And, you know, I can take this to our lending team and they can look at it. We can figure something out to help put you in a better financial position and relieve the stress.

[00:19:19] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: The American Institute of Stress says this, that the highest instance of stress is financial. Number two would be, like, marriage or relational. Uh, number three would be, like a stressful work environment.

[00:19:31] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: But financial. Finance is the leading cause of divorce. I mean, so if it's, it's an issue there. So how about we figure out how do we address it? How do we deal with it? How do we help people work through it? Is that something that we can help them work through?

[00:19:44] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Agreed. Yeah, I guess not all scenarios are gonna, are gonna have the happy ending, like you said, but the, the biggest part to this is how you lead with empathy. I think that's the word that probably defines your style and the team's style for this type of approach [00:20:00] the best.

[00:20:00] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And so we do a lot of talking at different conferences, et cetera, trying to advocate for as much empathy as possible. Because the definition is to understand and feel what the other person is going through.

[00:20:12] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Now, this woman who is in a hospital, who is undergoing, I mean, who hasn't been sick, right? And so not to that level perhaps, but you can very very quickly know a loved one a friend a colleague that has had an illness for an extended period of time.

[00:20:28] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And what a menace that could be financially, personally, professionally. You know, who knows what kind of you know things that this this poor person was going through. And the small little kindness that you're affording probably changes the entire perspective for that individual.

[00:20:43] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And the road to recovery becomes that much faster. Empathy is where I think you, you are at your strongest. Empathy on the personal side as well as the professional.

[00:20:54] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: So I'm going to tell you this quick story if I may.

[00:20:56] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Please, please.

[00:20:57] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: So in the course of my career, [00:21:00] I've probably had maybe like 6, 000 collectors work for me. Since October 20th, 1997, I came in as a manager at like a 12 person team. But one collector stands out. She was the single worst collector out of thousands. I mean, we're talking about thousands of people, thousands of people, single worse.

[00:21:19] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Look at me people. When I say this, the worst collector ever in the history of debt collections. I had to be by this point, maybe I'm 23 years old, right? I had a team and it was like 42 collectors on this team. It was like a front end team. And so a guy comes to me one day and he managed like our backend group.

[00:21:37] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And he says to me, Hey, they're going to fire that girl. And I was young and dumb, but I was smart enough to know that it took us a long time to hire people. Because it wasn't a great place to work. And so I go, Why? And he goes, Amber Long, she just sucks as a collector. Like, she's a horrible collector. I said, was anybody trained her?

[00:21:54] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And he was like, no. So I walked over to Amber Long and I sat down and I said, Amber Long, uh, you suck at this job and you're [00:22:00] gonna get fired. Which was horrible. I mean, again, I'm 20. Thank God we don't have the same HR issues that we now.

[00:22:05] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Bad way to start the day.

[00:22:07] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so she goes, why? I was like, you're horrible on the phones.

[00:22:10] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so I said, look. I worked a split shift because it was during this time of year and it was in Arizona. So we started at five and we would go to like 8:30 at night. And so I said, look, I will sit with you because she worked a six to three shift. I don't know where I remember this, but I remember it. I was like, oh, I'll sit with you from six to seven.

[00:22:28] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And then I'll sit with you from three to four, every day. Every day I would sit with her with a, with a wide corridor and listening to her on the phone. And she would let people talk and drone on. And then I would be like, no, do this. No, do that. But here's what she said differently. She would call people and she would say, Michael, how you doing?

[00:22:45] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: This is Amber calling from Green Tree Financial Services, calling about your past new home improvement loan. I just wanted to see what I could do to help you out today. It sounded completely different from the other 42 people. Completely different.

[00:22:58] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Hey Michael, I [00:23:00] got your checking account information here, we just wanted to know what check number you wanted to use and when you would like the check dated for. And people would be like, huh, she would ask questions. How you doing today? What's going on with you? How can I help you? But when she would say that to him, what can I do to help you out today? Oh, you know, Amber, I couldn't pay you because I'm, you know, child support was later. I had car trouble. I mean, I understand that. That's rough. I've had car trouble before.

[00:23:23] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: All right. Well, look, you can't pay today, but could you pay maybe by like the 28th of the month? That way, you don't roll in the 30 day, we don't mess up your credit, you don't have to talk to anybody else.? Yeah, I can do that. Alright, I'll set the payment up for you right now.

[00:23:37] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Then she became like the collector of the month. Every single, she, she was the collector of the month. She hit goal like the next 12 or 13 months. Was collector of the month, like 5 times in the year. Stopped doing what she was doing just to help others.

[00:23:49] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: She would collect the goal in her queue by like day 26 and then the rest of the month, she could help others. But, here's what, here's what she did. Here's, here's what was different. Michael, here, this [00:24:00] is, this is the kicker. She figured out how to allow who she was inherently within her to drive what she did for work. She didn't separate the two.

[00:24:10] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Interesting.

[00:24:11] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Now, question. You, you, what do you think happened to Amber?

[00:24:14] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: I'm going to imagine that she's in a long line of collections roles because that's a phenomenal way of approaching the conversation.

[00:24:24] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Nope, there, there's Amber right there. There she is,

[00:24:28] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: That is one hell of a way to court, Shannon.

[00:24:32] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: But that's now, now people listen, this was before any me too. Uh, we did not work in the same department once we started dating that, that moved on. I went somewhere else.

[00:24:41] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: That that is a, that, um, I don't know if, uh, that's a great pickup line, but, uh, it is the best pickup line from, from now on. You're about to get fired. We need to work together. But I think to your point, if you cannot separate the two, if you're genuine about the empathetic approach of working with [00:25:00] someone in order to be able to help them, you cannot fake that and it becomes real.

[00:25:05] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And so the negotiation between the two parties becomes valid and effective, all right? And so how many out there listening to this have received promises to pay where the promise has been broken? I bet you anything. Her promises to pay were probably far more effective than anything else because there was a genuine relationship that was created.

[00:25:27] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Right. And, and, you know, as, as we think about this, right. Not the shame with the Lexop plug, but this is where Lexop comes in because what we've created as an environment, is gone are the days of, you know, collectors, you know, making, working on a phone for, you know, 7. 25 hours a day, making a, you know, 20. 1 calls per hour and a 72% you know, promise cap rate on a 8%, you know, contact rates, so on and so on and so on, you know.

[00:25:56] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Because members don't want to talk to people anymore. The world's [00:26:00] different. You know, when I started off as a collection supervisor, and then I moved to being a dialer administrator back in the day when we had predictive dialing systems.

[00:26:06] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And we would sit in front of these things and build these, you know, grandiose dialing campaigns on whether it was a Melita or Mosaics or Avaya or, you know, back in the day. You'd build these call campaigns and we'd be like, okay, that's Saturday, you know, we come in at five and it's college football.

[00:26:23] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: So let's, let's build our call campaigns going from the East coast to the West. Cause we know these people will be home at this time. And we switch this over here, those days are gone.

[00:26:33] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so if we're going to truly serve our members, the idea is to serve them and meet them how they want to be served. You know, how ineffective is that, Michael, if I come to you every day and be like, Hey, Mike, uh, you know, we're gonna go and, have some fun today. And you're like, great. Alright, Mike, let's go do 20 pull ups. And you'd be like, what the hell are you talking about? I don't want to do that. That's not fun for me.

[00:26:53] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And every day I would be like, Hey, Mike, come on, man, we're gonna go do those pull ups. We're going to go run outside. You'd be like, what are you talking about? I don't want to do that. That's not what I'm [00:27:00] into.

[00:27:00] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: We have a different definition of fun. Yeah.

[00:27:02] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Right. And so now it looks at it as that, as we look at serving members for resolving delinquency, what do we do to really serve the members? Like, what are we really doing? And are we saying it's service? And it's really not.

[00:27:15] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I tell the people the same on some of the boards that I sit on. Are we shielding ego in the name of philanthropy? Are we costuming ego as, as, as philanthropy? Just to say, we did it. Hey, I gave this, or I did this, or I did that. I mean, if we really want to do it, let's, let's go out and do it. Like if we, if we really want to be an impact, let's hit the streets and be an impact.

[00:27:36] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Like right now, today, immediately, let's not waste time. Let's go right now outside and find a person. You know, when we, when, when I had an issue recently where it was a unhoused gentleman at our credit union. We have security now, so he wasn't there.

[00:27:52] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And, uh, I came and he was by the back door. So they're like, we gotta call the cops. And I was like, well, let's not call the [00:28:00] cops yet. And he had been kind of aggressive with some folks, so I understand it. I was like, all right, I'll be back. And so I walked over to him and I was like, Hey, listen, I gave him some coffee and like some donuts because we had brought donuts in and I was like, Hey, what do you need?

[00:28:13] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: He was like, well, I need a blanket. And I was Like, well, I got a blanket in the back of my car. Come to my truck. Let me give you some stuff. And I was like, I don't want them to call the cops on you. Can you just leave? And he did. And they were like, no, he's going to come back. And I was like, he, he, he left because we treated him like a human.

[00:28:29] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: See, that's what collections is. Collections is humans dealing with humans. As cliche and crazy as it sounds.

[00:28:34] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: You were spot on.

[00:28:36] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Lexop comes in because Lexop tries to help credit unions figure out how to deal with humans like those humans want to be dealt with.

[00:28:43] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: It's trying to find the channel of choice, trying to find the medium of choice. And everybody's gonna have a different thing, right? I, here's, here's another one where you did the eyeballs to the listener. The eyeballs to the listener is gonna be. And here's a great example of, you know, kind of doing this and it's not a Lexop thing, but this is [00:29:00] just in general.

[00:29:00] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: If you have a member who is 25 years old, who is late on a car loan, 750 is the payment or 30 days past due. You have a 55 year old who has a car payment who is 30 days past due, 750. Do you use the same language in your template? If the answer is yes, there's a gap. Do you speak to a 55 year old the exact same way as you would a 25 year old in real life?

[00:29:23] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And the answer is very rarely, no. So why would we do it in communication that way, right? And so again, that's not a Lexop piece, but that's if you're fundamentally trying to connect with the person in the way that you think is going to resonate best.

[00:29:39] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: So when you came outside, you had a little something. You were offering the olive branch, so to speak, of here's some coffee, here's a donut, you probably don't have this. What do you need? Because I need this and this is, I do need you to move away because it's, it's causing a disturbance, but there's something that we can work out here together. And so [00:30:00] the more people approach it that way, the greater the success.

[00:30:03] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And sure, he could have come back. He could have told you no, and he could have been very colorful in his language in terms of what he, what he could have said. It could have gone in a million different ways, but it didn't, but it didn't. And there's the proof that it works.

[00:30:17] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: It's also realizing this. That financial struggles are sometimes very uncomfortable. Case in point, 2010, I worked for an organization and I built a 200 seat call center for Fannie Mae loans that were serviced by Bank of America. And so it was deed in lieu of foreclosure. And I had an idea because I had had a conversation with Bank of America, like, Hey, what's this going to look like as I build a call campaign?

[00:30:42] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And, and, and they were like, Oh, we're just going to send a few, a few thousand. That's it. And their first drop was, I remember it because when they sent it, then they sent me the file to look at, I was like, what the hell? This wasn't even what we talked about. It was 52, 645 distressed and foreclosed on properties [00:31:00] that were in the Southeast United States.

[00:31:02] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And I was like, I thought you would, it would be like 2000. Cause that's what you told me. And they were like, yeah, we messed up. I was like, well, you messed up like 26 fold. Like, like that's crazy.

[00:31:10] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I remember calling a guy one day, I will never forget again, these, these things are burning to my brain. He had a property. It was in Southeast Florida and the property was worth like, I don't know, maybe like 175, 000. And he owed like 325, 000 because when values are full inflated, that's what it was.

[00:31:31] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so I said to him, I said, Hey, listen, man, we, we sent you a FedEx envelope and he goes, okay. And I was like, there was a check in there.

[00:31:37] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: The check was for, I think the check was for like 7, 000. Cause that's what they figured out. They would give you in deed or foreclosure. And I was like, did you get it? He was like, yes. I was like, did you open it? He was like, no, he was like, I just didn't want to deal with it. I was like, why didn't you call us?

[00:31:51] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And he said, because I was embarrassed. As a man, he says, I was embarrassed. Yeah. Now, how am I going to deal with that? He says, I'm, I was embarrassed. [00:32:00] He's not willing. He's not intentionally trying to defraud us. He just ran into a situation. It's like, look, there's a situation. There's a check in there for 7, 000. It'll help you relocate. You can stay in the property though.

[00:32:11] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And this had to be, so it was 2010. So this maybe was like February of 2010, because we had talked about a position between then and 10, the time his kids got out of school. It's like your kids get out of school in June, that'll give you until August to relocate. You can stay there. You don't have to pay rent. Because you're already going to deed the property. You're going to do a deed in lieu back test. You just have to leave the property in broom swept condition.

[00:32:35] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: When you do, we'll give you another check for two grand. He was like, okay, it worked out. But it was listening to him, hearing his story. I think when we look back at the old collection days of, you know, Mike, you gotta be on the phone for, you know, two minutes or three minutes per phone call, and you can have a 45 second, you know, after call work and all of that, sometimes resolution takes longer than that. And you can't put a metrics [00:33:00] on, and once you start putting a metrics on people, you can put an expectation on production, but you can't put a metrics on people and resolution. Can't do that.

[00:33:07] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: You know, I've made this comment before on the pod and many conversations before. There is such a similarity to sales and collections. The exact same thing. And so there are lots of, you know, uh, methodologies of KPIs of you need to make 100 phone calls. You have to have talk time of X minutes per conversation. It has to be this.

[00:33:28] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And sure, you can, you can drill it down as like a scientific, you know, kind of piece, but it is cold. It is brutal. And it's probably why there is such a revolving door in those type of professions, especially in sales or where there is misinformation. Everybody has gotten a phone call from a sales rep that is wildly over promised and under delivered.

[00:33:50] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: The same thing on the collection side, that if you're just treating this as a transaction, the other person feels that. And so nobody who's in collections feels good about that, even if it's not somebody [00:34:00] who's financially insecure, even if it's just a mistake. I've gone away on, you know, holidays, or I went away on a business trip, and I forgot to do something, and now I'm getting a call that, hey, you forgot something.

[00:34:10] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: You feel dumb, you feel silly, you feel, you know, oops, I made a mistake. That's not a good emotional, um, you know, balance to have. I love the approach with this.

[00:34:20] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: You've talked a little bit about, you, you have a line. The importance of recognizing your gift is waiting for you. Expand on that and your philosophy and how that has guided life and work, because I think it's tied together pretty well.

[00:34:35] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I will say this. That's not my line. That's the line that was given to me. Milton Hunt. You heard Milton Hunt speak. And, uh, those of you that are in credit union land, um, check him out, MiltonHunt. net. He said that to me once. Shannon, your gift is waiting on you. And I was like, whoa. That which you've been called to do, it's waiting on you.

[00:34:57] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: You just gotta go to the place and you [00:35:00] gotta just pick it up. I believe this. Everybody's called to do something. Everybody has a purpose to do something.

[00:35:08] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Yeah.

[00:35:08] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Now I believe that that gift that which you've been gifted to do is not to benefit you, it's supposed to benefit others. Now, I, I think that's where the lack of fulfillment comes in it.

[00:35:18] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: You, you see a lot of men, and even a lot of CEOs, once they retire, they go on a downward spiral because they're not working on their gift, they're working a job.

[00:35:26] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: What's your gift? Some get some people's gifts to inspire and my gift is to get, you know, I have a gift to, to connect people. Like that's what God's called me, to connect this person to this person. When I see good people, I should connect good people with other good people because I think both of these people are good people. They should know each other.

[00:35:43] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Or it's to inspire. It's to help people be in a better mental state at the end of my interaction than they were at the start. But it's being willing to step into that and to say, okay, this is what I'm called to do, how is this going to shape the rest of my life? Every interaction.

[00:35:57] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And, if I, if I do [00:36:00] that, it keeps me on the straight and narrow because it keeps me away from doing something that I shouldn't do because I know people are watching, expecting me to do the gift that I walk in.

[00:36:09] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: I love that.

[00:36:10] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: If somebody from just from a character perspective, if someone comes to you and goes, Hey, Mike, we saw Shannon started doing X, Y, and Z. You would know, you would be like, nah, that's not even in his character to do something like that.

[00:36:22] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Or, or, or, no, he's never done it. I've known the guy a while, he's never done anything like that. That doesn't even make sense. That's not even something he would do. You could say it with confidence. And so I, I, I try to figure out everything I do, how, you know, where do I base my life on? My, my life, my life and the life of my wife and those two kids, it's based on some type of service to others.

[00:36:41] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Everybody's always looking at how do we resolve a problem or a situation for others. Sometimes it's overwhelming for me because sometimes I try to resolve situations that don't have anything to do with me.

[00:36:50] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Like you might just be like, Hey Shannon, I got this going on and I'm thinking like, how do I help with that?

[00:36:56] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I was talking to a young lady, uh, recently, her, her grandmother, her [00:37:00] grandmother, her granddaughter plays with my daughter on the same basketball team. So we're talking and she's talking about how they have a, they live in, uh, near a country club, but they have a childcare issue because, the grandparents work early in the morning. And the grandparents have legal custody of the, of the granddaughter, right?

[00:37:16] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And I was like, well, where do you live? And so she's telling me and I'm like, man, there has to be. And I'm thinking she didn't ask for anything, but I'm thinking like, there has to be something I can do to help her with this. Like, there has to be. How, how can I be a resolve to this situation? And I was like, well, I know somebody that's at like a childcare facility in the area. So let me call that person and be like, Hey, can I call him a favor?

[00:37:37] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: It's a person I knew through the YMCA. And I had figured out like, Hey, who oversees that site over there? And then when I got back on Monday, I called the lady and I was like, Hey, here's a situation. And I'm coming at you hat in hand. Can you do a favor for me?

[00:37:49] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And she's like, well, we have like a year waiting list. I don't know if we can do anything. I was like, well, whatever you could do, I would be grateful. And then the lady's grandmother texted me last night and was like, [00:38:00] whatever you did, there was a waiting list, and they said they didn't have anything, but they said we could drop her off on Monday, and they'll take her to and from school.

[00:38:07] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Like, it's just figuring out whatever I could do to put people together, to help this person to meet with this person, to help people resolve a situation. I mean, who doesn't like to resolve a situation?

[00:38:18] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: That's what Helping Hands Giving Hope does. We provide the idea of relief by any way possible. Whether that's you calling me saying, hey, you know, I got a kid that he can't get to school on time.

[00:38:31] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: We had that, we had that situation recently. We found out a kid, he lived two hours from the school. We didn't live two hours from the school, but the transport. His mother worked 50 miles from his house. He lives 15 miles from the school, but because he has to take a bus over a bridge, over another bridge, it ends up being like a two hour transport to school.

[00:38:51] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: When I, sometimes, the buses would run late, so she would have to Uber him, and it would be like 70, 7 0, 70 U. S. dollars a [00:39:00] day, for him to get to and from school. She's a single mom. Well, we found out that she would, she wanted to get him a scooter. Because a scooter would then help him get to the bus faster, and then if he didn't have it, he could still ride the scooter over the bus. And it had like a long enough battery life.

[00:39:16] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: So my wife brought it up and I was like, well, let's pray about it, figure out how we can be involved in this. And, um, you know, we figured it out. And I got a donation from a company after we did backpacks, Helping Hands Giving Hope, we do a backpack drive a year and the company said, Hey, we didn't get a chance to participate, but we wanted to.

[00:39:32] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And it was the exact amount for a scooter, a helmet and a lock for the boy. So it's just letting people know what you do with everything. I mean, outside of the collection space, people should know you by something, right? So letting people know what you do, and then if people know what you do, they, if you're a good dude, they want to come alongside of you and be a part of it.

[00:39:51] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: I couldn't agree more. And so you're the personification of that. And, you know, the tagline of your gift is waiting for you. First, shout out to [00:40:00] Milton Hunt. He's a terrific speaker. You had him at the UCC event that took place, the inaugural event, you know, earlier, uh, in 2020, uh, in 2024. It was amazing.

[00:40:10] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: But you're, you're 100 percent right. And so I think even how you introduced Milton into that, and you actually, you had us speak at UCC as well, which, in my opinion, is a gift, uh, to, to an organization like Lexop. Uh, because we had been communicating together, but we were still relatively unknown, and so you were constantly in that zone of trying to pair, you know, individuals together and understand the ecosystem that's around you.

[00:40:40] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: It truly is a gift, Shannon, and not many people harnessed, you know, the, the, the ability that you have. However, I dare say that you have had so much practice with this. Because this is in your DNA, that it is so easy for you to understand the ecosystem around you that you probably piece things together far faster than [00:41:00] anybody, you know, possibly can.

[00:41:01] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: And it really is a beautiful gift.

[00:41:04] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: So, here's a fun fact. People may not know this, because someone asked me this a couple of days ago. I was in, um, in Big Bear, California, speaking at the Christian Leadership Conference for the YMCA. And someone asked me, they go, tell us a fun fact about yourself. And I talked to them, no, this was Monday at the Interfaith Council, there's a, Los Angeles County has an Interfaith Council, but I was talking about this also at the Christian Leadership Council, uh, on Sunday.

[00:41:26] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: They said, well, tell us a fun fact about yourself. And I was like, I started a lot of the stuff that I do now doing prison ministry. I used to help run a prison, uh, like a prison outreach organization with my uncle. And so my uncle would always say this, he would always go, son, you can't con a con. And I was like, huh. He was like, so you.

[00:41:45] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Whenever you go into a correctional facility, just be yourself and then it'll all work out. And then that, that kind of led to every place in life. It has to always be the same. God has blessed me. I get a chance, opportunity to speak a lot. You know, we're, we're like in November and I've [00:42:00] had like, you know, like two speaking events already and it's November 7th. And it's, you just go out, you just, you know, be who you are, you be genuine.

[00:42:08] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: You tell the truth, you just be yourself. Whether it's, you know, 20 people or 2000 people, or if it's a, you know, I think I've been grateful enough to be able to speak to varying people. I mean, it's every day, it's someone different. Like every day, it's a different class, a different person, a different experience. And it really helps you become more well rounded as you deal with people here on the collection side, but also in life, it helps me understand that people are different, man.

[00:42:35] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: People are different, but everyone's the same.

[00:42:37] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Everybody's going through their own unique thing, but we all go through it together in some way, and it all comes back in the end to being the same thing. That is such wise words of wisdom, and Shannon, we're flying through time, I just recognize, so I want to be respectful of this. As we wrap this up, maybe, uh, there's two things.

[00:42:55] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: One, I would love to grab some insights for your audience on [00:43:00] where we can follow you, the Car Chronicles, the charities that you are engaged in, we're going to put links at the bottom of this here. Um, so one, if you wanted to put a shout out to anything that you are following, that you wanted anybody to take a special interest to, and then the last piece would be, you know, is there a message for the listeners here?

[00:43:18] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: One takeaway from the conversation today. Although, I don't know if you're going to be able to top what you just said, because I think that that was probably the best insight that I've heard in a very long time.

[00:43:29] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I got two. You know, number one, I say this every time I speak somewhere at the end of it, I say, you know, I love you, God loves you, keep living in victory. And so people always go, why do you say that? And I go, well, it's, you don't want to just be victorious and win just once. Like I want to win. Every day, every day I wake up, it has to be some type of focus.

[00:43:45] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: When I put my boots on in the morning, it has to be some type of focus on winning and winning for me is, is, is helping somebody be different tomorrow than they are today, that my entire life is based on that, that the one thing that, as I said earlier, when I said your gift is waiting on you, [00:44:00] the, the, a guy asked me this, um, A young leader, a couple of months ago, he says, what gets you up in the morning?

[00:44:05] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And I was like, you got to have that one thing that gets you up in the morning. One, one, every day I wake up in the morning thinking I may run into somebody today that I may be able to help. Because sometimes it feels like it's useless, right? I, I had a situation and I'll wrap this up in a couple of things.

[00:44:20] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: I had a situation a couple of weeks ago where I was like down on myself and I was like, dang, man, what did I do? Does it really matter? Am I really an impact? Maybe I'm losing this. Maybe I should be doing something else. And I had went to a grocery store and, uh, My son, he had practice late in the afternoon, so I went to the grocery store to get like pre made sandwiches so we could eat like right after, uh, in my office after school, then before he eats again, before he goes back to practice.

[00:44:42] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so as I went out, this lady walked up to me and she was unhoused and she goes, Hey, do you have a dollar? And I was like, well, what do you need? And she was like, I'm gonna tell you the truth. I just want a beer. And I was like, it's 8:11 in the morning. I was like, where are you getting a beer at, at 8:11 in the morning?

[00:44:58] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so I was like, [00:45:00] no, I didn't have cash. I was like, but what's going on with you? And she was like, ah, I'm just out here. And I was like, well, let me give you a bag of stuff. And I make a helping hands, giving hope. We make these bags for the homeless and they're filled with a bottle of water, socks, a protein source, toothpaste, toothbrush, a feminine napkin, all kinds of snacks and stuff. And they're in a lunch pill.

[00:45:20] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: And so I was like, well, let me give you one of these. I said, would you like a sleeping bag? And she was like, what? And so she was like, yeah. And so I went in the back of the truck and I had a brand new sleeping bag. Because Helping Handsgiving Hope, we did a sleeping bag drive and people gave to it, and I had a bunch of them in the back of my truck. And we had a blanket, and she was like, you're a Godsend, truly. That's the one thing.

[00:45:39] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Now, I will end by saying this, again, this is a Milton Huntism, and I have to, I'm gonna, I wrote it down, so I'm gonna read it to you, like he said it to me, because when he said it to me, so he says, um, two things, he says, you need to start chasing your gift instead of your gift chasing you. That was one thing.

[00:45:59] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: [00:46:00] But he said this to me because when people ask me this, people are always asking me every day, no matter where I go, where I speak at, if I do a Q& A, they say, how do I get started? And I go, just do something. Everybody, everybody, period. If you're under the sound of my voice, everybody has something that they want to do, but you're letting, you're figuring out a way not to do it.

[00:46:19] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Everybody, everybody has something that they want to do. Mike works with a, with a, uh, a beautiful young lady. She wants to walk dogs. I said it to her last time we spoke and she was like, who told you that? Did Mike tell you that? Didn't even know. I could just tell. She wanted to do something. So he said this to me.

[00:46:34] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: He says, you're going to have to borrow the belief that I have in you until you see the belief that I see in you. So if you're under the sound of my voice, you're waiting on something, I will leave you with that.

[00:46:46] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Borrow the belief that I have in you until you can see the belief that I see in you. Because you've been created to be great. You're not supposed to just be a collection manager, a collection supervisor, or a sales guy. You're supposed to be out impacting the world. More than [00:47:00] just the UCC, more than just Lexop, more than the NWUCA, more than these organizations.

[00:47:05] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: You're supposed to be impacting the world so they can see the gift that's inside of you. So that's what I'll leave you on. I love you guys. I love you. Keep living in victory.

[00:47:12] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: That is how we are going to wrap up, ladies and gentlemen, for our next episode of Connect and Collect. Shannon, thank you so much for the wisdom, the stories, the time that we spent together. We just flew through about an hour, uh, you know, going, going through this stuff and it felt like five minutes. I cannot wait to see you again, uh, share a cigar, share some more stories and all the conversations that we have.

[00:47:34] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: So thank you, Shannon, for carving out some time with all the listeners today.

[00:47:37] Shannon Stewart, Collection Manager at Southland Credit Union: Thank you guys.

[00:47:39] Michael Pupil, VP of Sales at Lexop: Amazing. Join us next time, guys, on Connect and Collect through Lexop. Uh, this is Michael Pupil. Always a pleasure and hope to see you guys again soon. Thank you for listening to the Connect and Collect podcast. Find show notes and other resources for this episode at lexop.com. And if you enjoyed the episode, [00:48:00] make sure to subscribe, like, share, and comment.

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