That's the great thing about running towards challenges. Don't just do what everybody else has done. Run towards a challenge and now all of a sudden you gain an expertise. And that's a wonderful way to especially in a mature industry trying to think outside the box and accomplish things maybe a little bit differently.
You're listening to What Fuels You, where we deep dive with CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business leaders to learn more about their stories and uncover nuggets of wisdom we can all use. I'm your host, Shauna Swerland, CEO of Fuel Talent, an award-winning recruiting firm based in Seattle.
Today's guest on the What Fuels You podcast is Brent Beardall. Brent is the president and CEO of WAFED Bank, the largest bank headquartered in Washington State with more than 27 billion dollars in assets and 200 offices located in nine western states. He has spent over two decades at WAFED, rising through finance and operations before becoming CEO in 2017. Known for his candid leadership style and public advocacy for community banking, Brent has led WAFED through significant economic disruption, strategic pivots, and cultural transformation. He is a Stanford Executive Program graduate, a CPA by training, and serves on several civic and financial boards. Brent often describes himself as the luckiest man alive. A perspective shaped by lived experience, gratitude, and responsibility. Welcome, Brent. So good to see you. Thanks for joining.
Shauna, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this conversation.
I am too. I'm going to hit you with some rapid fire out of the gate. Are you a mountains or beach if you had to choose?
It's changed over the years. I grew up in Southern California. I grew up on the beach down in Newport Beach, California, but now I'm a mountains guy. I've had enough sun in my life.
Yeah. Do you surf or did you surf growing up?
I was more of a swimmer, so body surfing was my thing. I was on the water polo team, so it's all body surfing.
Oh, I love that. My nephew is a water polo player. It was in high school. That sport is like intense. That's great.
It is so much fun and it's great exercise, by the way. And what's crazy about it is the amount of contact that happens beneath the water. It is a full contact.
I didn't know that, but my friend's daughter is going to play in college. And she's like, 'Oh, no. They make you cut your nails. They check your nails.' Because the girls apparently like ripped each other under the water to shreds. I had no idea. I was like, 'Oh, that's new information.'
Yeah. No. And some of the most brutal was it was co-ed in Southern California. And that's kind of fun. Let's just say some of the girls I played with were maybe not as respectful to the guys as we were to the women.
That's crazy. I can only imagine. You got to do what you got to do. Are you an early riser or night owl?
Definitely an early riser. Yes. I typically try to get out 5 to 6 o'clock in the morning.
There. Did you ever read that? Like what is it the 5 a.m. club? Do you have like a routine? One of those people.
Yeah, it varies. I travel so much. When I'm home I try to have a routine.
Yeah. And where do you go or what do you do when you want to just kind of unplug or reset?
To me, back to your earlier question to the mountains. Just get out and hike or bike in the mountains and combine that with a little golf. And one of the things that's unusual about me about golfing is I actually prefer to walk and to play by myself because it's a great time to reset and just be by yourself because it's just you and the ball, right? There's no excuses and it's a really good time to just kind of think about things.
I used to be better than I am. The accident caused some havoc, but I can win a little bit here and there.
Yeah, that's awesome. We'll get into the accident, which is just the craziest story. Question for you. What three words would your closest friends use to describe you?
Irreverent, optimistic, and driven.
I'm curious what your first concert was.
Music for the Masses. Depeche Mode at the LA Coliseum in probably '86.
Oh gosh. So good. That's like quintessential 80s.
Oh yes. And nothing like a concert with 120,000 of your best friends.
Oh yeah. And what are the qualities if you had to pick like three that you most value in employees or just like leaders? Things that you look for.
Number one is authenticity to be real. So much of our world is fake today. So I look for authenticity. So don't tell me what you're just great at. Obviously, you're going to tell me what you're great at. Tell me where your shortcomings are because we all have them. That'd be number one. Number two, probably closely related to that is someone that's introspective that can step back and really look at what they've done right, what they've done wrong. And number three is someone that's willing to learn. I'm so done with people that believe they know everything. One of the things I love to do in the new year is try to look back and say, 'Okay, what did I learn this last year that I was wrong about before?' And too many times in my life, I look back and say, 'Oh, there's not too much.' And that's not a reflection of me being right. That's a reflection of not getting out there and learning new things.
Yeah. So, it almost sounds like you're like, 'Hey, I'd love to take the great players, but they have to be coachable.'
You know what? I would so much rather take the undrafted players, players that have a little bit of talent but have a whole lot more heart.
Yeah, that totally makes sense. And what are like the small things that bring you kind of real joy or that you feel gratitude for? I mean, obviously we're all like family health, but like are there little things that you've learned to really appreciate?
Yeah. And we'll get into this as we talk about the accident. I tell you what, waking up every day is a gift and it's not guaranteed to any of us. And life can change so quickly. And no matter what your day looks like, whatever is coming at you that day, to be able to wake up and stand on your feet and take a deep breath and being able to attack the day, having gratitude, it's again, it's the simple things, right? But that puts everything in perspective. That's one of the things that has changed in my life. I've always been an optimistic person, but it is wonderful to be alive.
Yeah, it's unfortunate. You know, a lot of people that when they get a diagnosis or they have an accident or something happens, that's when you get that perspective. And it's almost like how do you shake people into that perspective without some sort of trauma or tragedy? But I think that, you know, I've read about you prior to the accident. Just happened in 2023, correct?
Yeah. And so you've had a whole lifetime before obviously with all sorts of incredible attributes. I'm curious what specifically do you do to stay present in that gratitude? Because being a CEO of such a huge company, having so many moving parts in your life, you can feel that kind of broadly, but like in the day-to-day, whether it's traffic or the just the little things that people get kind of shaken by, is that just gone automatically or do you have to kind of stay present and remind yourself?
No, you have to stay present and remind yourself. And one of the scriptures, I'm a religious person and one of the scriptures talks about the sands of the sea, right? And I think about that quite often. I am just one tiny grain of sand and I am no better or no worse than anyone else. And the other thing I love to say is you cannot rest on what you did yesterday, what you learned yesterday, on what your resume. It is what are you doing today? And I think that really helps to motivate me to try to say, okay, what am I doing today to make a difference?
Yeah. And so when you're trying to... well I want to get into all this but I don't want to skip through. I'm like so curious now you've got me on the edge of my seat. I'm like I always want to ask you about like work stuff and style but first let's start from the beginning. So you were raised in Southern California. Do you have siblings? And like where did you get this positive attitude from?
Yeah. So, I was raised in Southern California. Kind of a beach kid, Kenyon High School in Anaheim Hills, California. And I started working from an early age. I started working, my father was a banker. So, I started working in the file room of a bank when I was I think 14 years old. And you know, the antithesis of oh, your dad's a banker, you've got a great life. My dad was a banker and get to work. And literally back in the day when there were pink slips for cars and these were on auto loans and I'd file the pink slips that work in the file room and I worked my way up to the collections department. Believe it or not when I was 16 years old I was working collections calling people.
Oh my gosh. I can't even imagine.
It was a wonderful education. Wonderful. Because I got to learn about leverage and I got to learn how many people are living above their means. Right. Being a kid in high school, I always thought, well, you look at their car and based on their car, you can know how well they're doing in life. Not true. There were so many people that were living above their means and just working with people and, hey, you need to make your payment. If you don't make your payment, your car is going to be gone tomorrow. There's no way. You guys won't do it. And then they would call the next day. You guys blankety blank took my car. And there are consequences. There are economic realities. And trying to figure out how to live within your means is something we all need to do and as government we need to do.
100%. And so you also it was probably taught you about accountability and all of that whether was it your parents or teachers or kind of who in your life really made an impact?
Yeah. So, going back to that family a little bit and I'll talk about that impact, but I'm the youngest of three children. I've got a brother that's three years older than me and a sister that's six years older than me. And when I was 15, unfortunately, my father passed away when I was 15 years old. And at the time, I thought it was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. And to this day, I miss my father. I can't wait to see him hopefully someday on the other side. But in hindsight, it was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me because it taught me that accountability. And importantly, something that it gave me was a switch within myself to be able to turn on to be very, very serious and a switch to let go, let your hair down a little bit and have fun and kid around and joke and enjoy life. And I think you have to do both to be healthy from a mental perspective. And so that really helped shape who I was. And it's one of the learnings in life is you can be a victim when things happen to you because things are going to happen to all of us and they do happen to all of us. You can either be a victim or you can take whatever's happened to you and learn from it and become stronger. And it's one of the things that I, a saying I've always enjoyed, you know, if it doesn't kill you, man, let it make you stronger.
That's what I try to be. But that really shaped my life at a young age at 15 years old because I became effectively the man of the home.
Well, I was going to ask was it your older brother, your older sister? You're the baby and so you know what role did you play and how did that play into your ability to kind of I'm guessing you probably felt like you had to do the right thing not cause any more kind of stress for the family not necessarily not color outside the lines but you know some kids are rebellious at 15 as a result of some trauma and it sounds like you went the opposite direction.
Yeah. You know, it was just the more my brother was on his Mormon mission. He was down in Venezuela of all places and my sister was back and forth between college. So, I was home with my mom. But all the responsibilities for the house, you know, taking care of the yard, the sprinklers, you know, when we needed a new roof, painting the house, everything associated with that just went on your shoulders. And whether it was real or perceived, the perception was, 'Okay, I need to take the mantle from my dad and take care of my mom.'
Wow. Well, she was lucky to have a son like you. That's amazing. As a parent now, I'm like, that's so nice to hear. And were there values that you could like speak to that were like this is what was important to my family growing up?
Yeah, you know, to me it was always, you know, just hammered into me. You need to have a north star. What are your values? There is right and there is wrong in this world. And it's also important to realize that you're not always right. Right. Others, but there is a right and wrong. You treat people with kindness. You treat people with respect. Right. It's that golden rule. You do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And one of the things I really dislike is, you know, the nice guy finishes last. If that's the case, I'm happy to finish last because I do believe we need more people that are nice in this world. But I think nice gets a bad moniker, if you will, because nice doesn't mean being taken advantage of.
Yeah, I think kind is a better... I like the word kind because you know when people are like pretend you set somebody on a blind date and they're like how was it and you're like oh he was nice like nice almost sounds like you're just kind of getting by like almost not disingenuous which kindness is like I did that extra thing and I do that what you're talking about treating others as I would want to be treated which to me if the world operated with that as the religion not necessarily organized religion but just the mantra, can you imagine the world like it's just I agree the world is crazy right now and we need more nice people and kind people.
We do right. No, and it is right how our language evolves over time. It's you know nice to meet you. So it just seems so superficial and shallow and whether it's nice or kind but it is living by that golden rule. And I wholeheartedly agree. Can you imagine what the world could be if we really treated each other that way? If banks treated their customers that way? That's what we try to do here at WAFED Bank, right? I mean, in even this podcast with what you're doing, I can tell you you want to go to a level of depth and understanding not only for your audience, but for yourself, which is I love that curiosity.
I really can't do the small talk thing. Like I'm pretty good at the, you know, networking and meeting new people, but I don't get energy from, you know, talking about making small talk because I just want to cut through to the meat of a person and figure out really what they're about. It's just that's my whole thing. I've always been that way. Very curious about people. Luckily I'm in the people business and you are too. So tell me about school. Where did you go to school and how did you make that choice? Was it the right choice?
Sure. I went to BYU from California to BYU. Spent a year at school. Then I spent two years on a Mormon mission down in Mexico City, which was probably the biggest learning I've ever had in life to go from a pretty well-off life in Southern California to Mexico City. And the first area I served in was Iztapalapa, which means beehive. It didn't even have a paved road. You think of Mexico City and there's some wealth in Mexico City, but there is a lot of poverty in Mexico City. And I saw that poverty and trying to get your US stomach accustomed to the food and water in Mexico. You have all kinds of sickness issues and it is incredibly humbling.
Tell me about the Mormon missions. So is there a certain time where everyone goes and is it does everyone do it or only people who are like tell me about that a little bit more because I have two friends who did that but I never asked them.
Oh yeah. No, that's great. So you are highly encouraged to go. Saying you're required to go would be an overstatement but highly encouraged to go. And it used to be much more for the men to go and the women just if they want to. But now both are highly encouraged to go. But I highly, honestly if I could be in charge of the world and say okay this is what one change I want to make to everyone. I would require two years of service for everyone around that time frame as you transition from high school to college.
Right. I agree with that. And honestly, I know I'm not saying everybody go on a Mormon mission, but something like a Mormon mission, something like peace service, military, two years where you have to focus on someone other than yourself, outside of yourself. Well, they do that in Israel. My kids have all studied abroad in Israel in their sophomore year of high school and they come back and they're just like, it's so incredible that people want to serve their country. It's part of it's mandatory.
Yes. And I agree that it would be great for some sort of service to be mandatory and not just be about get from here to there so that you can make money and consume, which just seems like it's a little bit more our mentality.
No, it is. And it's interesting. I went to Israel a couple of years ago and the wonderful thing about Israel is everyone has a purpose.
Yes. And that purpose is to survive together.
They are incredibly welcoming. It's like, okay, we want to survive. There is a target on our backs. We want to survive. And yeah, it's incredible that sense of purpose. Everyone that it's mandatory military service and I found them to be so welcoming and hospitable.
Yeah. It's a great country misunderstood and especially right now and we could get that could be a whole podcast.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a crazy world.
But it is interesting and what I really loved about them is the resiliency. They everyone I and no matter what they went through don't call us victims. We are blessed and we will be resilient. Right. Just unbelievable.
Yeah. I agree. And so has your definition of success changed from I guess if we met in high school versus now. And not even now after your accident, but before your accident, just as like an adult, what does success mean to you?
Success to me means impacting others' lives. So if at the end of the day I can look back at my life and think that I helped lift others up, that's success.
Guessing there's a lot of people walking around this earth that you've impacted positively.
I don't know about that, but if there's one, I'm grateful, right? But in high school, no, it was way more focused monetarily, right? No, the success is, you know, driving a 911, being able to go to the beach, and that is success. And that was incredibly shallow. And life has taught me what really matters.
Yeah. And so when you think back, you said, 'Okay, if I could like wave my magic wand, everyone would do two acts of service.' What else would you change about specifically education? Like what would people be learning that you're surprised they don't know?
Yeah. I think we spend too much time in books nowadays. Books and on our tablets and our phones. I think we need to have more of the Wild West mentality, the homesteading mentality. This is actually something I was talking a colleague about the other day is wouldn't it be great as we're sitting here in this housing crisis and I ask myself how are my kids ever going to afford a home, right? How are our grandkids ever going to afford a home? Wouldn't it be, but yet you fly across this country we have so much land available to us, right? That the government owns, we own as we the people. Wouldn't it be great to say okay we are going to start up new cities and we're going to allow homesteading. You're going to be assigned this plot of land and together as a community, you're going to build the homes. So, you need to get good at a skill whether you're going to be framing, doing foundation, drywall, electrical, you name it.
Well, we need that now because there's no... We have to think of those jobs, too, that where AI is not going to replace it. I'm guessing AI is not building the homes. Not yet.
No, I don't think that will ever. Wouldn't that be cool? Right. And there's a sense of accomplishment. You learn a skill in community and you make it so, okay, you do this, you have to live there for the next 15 years.
How wonderful would that be?
Oh, that'd be incredible. I love that.
