Financial Hardship to Freedom - Jill Castilla
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: In times when our long cherished plans are disrupted, it's easy to succumb to fear and believe that God has abandoned us or is responsible for our disappointments and discouragements. However, this isn't how God operates, what we perceive as obstacles, setbacks, and detours are often the hand of God guiding and protecting us in divine ways.
[00:00:25] Even when we can't see it, God gently leads us towards the people we are meant to meet, the places where we should serve Him, and the experiences that will help us fulfill His divine plan for us. When faced with adversity, God also calls upon us to turn to Him. Through our faith and our love for Jesus, we can be assured that God is always by our side, offering his love, His support, His guidance, and His protection.
[00:00:59] We can humbly seek His wisdom and guidance through prayer, even when we're suffering or feeling discouraged. God's guidance and wisdom do not guarantee a life free from hardship, but they do ensure that our souls are always cared for and protected, regardless of what happens in this lifetime.
[00:01:23] We can trust in God.
[00:01:27] In this week's episode of Relentless Hope, Jill Castilla, the CEO of Citizens Bank of Edmond, exemplifies God's divine guidance and protection. Jill shares her story of overcoming unexpected obstacles and challenges on her journey to becoming the CEO of a bank in Edmond, Oklahoma. She discusses how she overcame financial struggles while paying for college, the time when a family member stole her car and $15,000, the new perspective she gained during her time in the military and how she helped her bank overcome the financial crisis.
[00:02:13] Jill learned to surrender to God, viewing her leadership positions as callings from Him. She never sought to become a leader, but rather wanted to be an instrument of good. She identifies the critical leadership traits that she's observed in others and tried to develop in herself, including competence, integrity, respect for others, and humility.
[00:02:40] Jill is dedicated to leaving a lasting impact on our community through her work at the bank, and she encourages others to be open and vulnerable with their stories, including their shames, their humiliations, and their triumphs. She reminds us that every experience in life shapes us and it molds us into the people that we are today.
[00:03:08] Indeed, God works in mysterious and miraculous ways that may be beyond our comprehension. However, when we look back on our lives, we can see how he has been divinely guiding and protecting us all along the way. This realization assures us that God is with us every step of the way.
[00:03:35] After leaving her small town in Oklahoma, Jill Castilla learned about the real world and joined the military.
[00:03:44] Jill Castilla: It, it really changed me. I got to see, um, people, even though I thought I was in this desperate space, that, oh my goodness, I wasn't gonna be able to go to college. I saw others that were escaping gang violence or escaping abusive relationships with their families or their significant others or single parents that had nowhere else to turn financially, and that they were truly in desperate spots. So even though I really felt like that I was in this place of no hope, it gave me so much perspective to see all these people around me that, um, that didn't have a lot of the blessings that I had and, and that in some ways I was taking for granted, even though I had challenges, there were, there were others that had much more, uh, momentous challenges than I did, and they were still keeping their chins up and, and forging ahead.
[00:04:31] And so it really told me to, you know, you kinda gave me a swift kick in the rear and said, you know, this is, you've got these goods, you've been blessed these talents, you've, you have paths to follow that, um, aren't treacherous and aren't dangerous. You know, you have responsibility to lean forward into that.
[00:04:53] Steve Gatena: On episode one of this three part series, Jill Castilla from Eastern Oklahoma finds a lit path out of the darkness. Named Community Banker of the Year by American Banker, Jill tells us about the roadblocks and challenges that were the defining moments of her life. She explains how she gained perspective through her time in the military and how she guided a bank out of near collapse.
[00:05:25] Jill Castilla: I'm Jill Castilla, um, I grew up in Eastern Oklahoma. Um, it's a small town, um, called Okmulgee. I had about 13,000 people that lived there. Um, it's a part of the state, uh, part, it's a city in Oklahoma that struggles a lot financially, and, um, during the oil bust we lost half of our population, and, um, that, so that's where I grew up. That was my hometown.
[00:05:46] And my parents got divorced when we were really young. And back then in this, in this community, there just really wasn't that many broken families. And so, uh, we moved in with my mom. Um, and that happened when I was in like first grade, kindergarten and, uh, we moved down around quite a bit.
[00:06:02] And then in fourth grade we were moved out of my mom's house and, and with my dad and both my parents had, um, several marriages and I, I grew up with my dad, who was a wonderful man and, and really raised me and my, my little sister at the time, um, really right. We were, we grew up in the church and we, um, had a large group of friends that were around us and a wonderful community that supported us.
[00:06:28] Um, but we really weren't encouraged to do anything, um, after high school. Um, we were kind of from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. And, um, even though I had friends that were from, um, more the affluent families in town, you know, we weren't really expected to do, um, more than get married after we graduated from high school and, and kind of settle around where we were.
[00:06:50] And I started, um, working, um, In the local grocery store, um, just down from where I went to school and down from where I lived, and I would carry groceries out. And there was a woman in our town, she was the, the matriarch of the local banking family and sit on the, she was the chairwoman of the board of directors of the community bank there in Okmulgee.
[00:07:10] And I would carry groceries out for her and her husband. And every time she would see me, and this is when I was in high school, she would, um, ask me where I was going to college. And I didn't know where I was gonna college. I didn't even think college could be a possibility for me. Um, but every time she expected me to have an answer as to where I was gonna go and what I was gonna do and how I was gonna escape, um, this small town where I was, and that I would have other options she would tell me than, than just staying there and carrying out groceries.
[00:07:37] Um, and so the next time I seeing Mrs. Mabry as her name, Um, I would have some anxiety knowing that I needed to answer her as to what, you know, kind my hopes and dreams were. And, um, I also were waitress at the local country club and, and oftentimes I'd see Mrs. Mabry and I knew every time that I would come up to her, she was gonna ask me where I was going to college.
[00:07:57] And so I applied to two universities. Um, we really didn't have, like college counselors at our school. Most of the counselors there were to keep you outta jail or something bad happened, they, they directed us to where you could go and get some help. Um, but I, um, they had two applications to the state universities there and I applied to both of them.
[00:08:16] Um, I had to ask them to waive my application fee. I didn't know anything about financial aid or even if that was a possibility. And applied for both of the schools and got scholarships from each and one gave me $50 more than the other. So I, um, chose to go to Oklahoma State University. And my parents, um, weren't supportive of that and didn't, um, really understand the financial aid process so they wouldn't complete the paperwork so that I could apply for financial aid.
[00:08:42] So I had to get a ride to the local university, which is about an hour away from a friend, and, um, borrowed sheets and blankets and things like that so that I'd have, um, you know, tools to be able to live away from home and had savings from bagging groceries and working at the country club and some other little internships and odd jobs that I did.
[00:09:03] And I thought I was really set out to be able to go, um, to college. Okay. And I got a job at the, I was able to transfer to, with my grocery store job, to the one by the local university. I didn't have a car, uh, so I would, uh, work all night at the grocery store, bagging groceries, go to school during the day, um, and then I would, um, leave in the afternoon to try study and try being involved a little bit on campus. And then I would go back to, to work at the, at the grocery store. And the first year that all worked out just fine. But the second year I started really running into some walls with, um, financially and just having the, um, physical endurance to keep up that schedule and, and my hope started really fading.
[00:09:47] And so I would work all night and walk to and fro to where I was living and then I would go to class and it was just this kind of endless cycle and I felt like I was one step behind financially and motivation wise I was, even though I was doing well in school. Um, and I just wasn't able to maintain friendships and, um, my church life and spiritual life was really lacking.
[00:10:08] And um, I just started to feel like there was just lost. And right when I was at the end of kind of that rope and really feeling a sense of hopelessness, I had, um, it was a Thursday night and it was like two o'clock in the morning and I was carrying groceries out for this gentleman. And he just asked me, why are you doing this?
[00:10:27] And I said, I really wanna go to college and I just, I don't know if I can do it anymore, and, but I feel like there's more plan for me than, than just, you know, carrying out groceries for the rest of my life. And he said, you, you know, I don't wanna pressure you, but I'm an Army recruiter and if you enlist in the Army, you get to become an independent student, you can apply for financial aid on your own, um, you can get the GI bill when you go back to college. You can apply for, um, scholarships, um, with ROTC, and it literally felt like the heavens opened up and angels started singing.
[00:11:02] And it was, um, I felt like there was a way, like there was a lit, lit path, that I thought had gone dark, um, where I could find a way out. And I went the next morning and I signed up for the Army, and, um, my parents, my friends, my, um, anyone that knew me thought it was the craziest thing that I could possibly do, and, and they all told me that I wouldn't be successful in doing it, and, and none of them could understand why I would make that choice, and, and honestly, I, I kind of felt ashamed that I was making that choice. So I, it felt like there was a lit path for me, but then it also felt like something that I was doing I knew I was doing out of desperation, not from some sense of service.
[00:11:48] So, um, I packed up and went to basic training and was a construction surveyor, went through all of my requirements there, um, went to my unit, was the only woman, um, in my unit. And there, um, met some really extraordinary people, but went through a lot of challenges. This is early nineties, this is when all the bad stuff was happening in the military, it seemed like, to women that were in it.
[00:12:14] And, you know, I got to experience a lot of that and a lot of the, um, innocence of being this, you know, young girl from a small town, was kind of lost and I got to see the real world. Um, and a lot of the good in that. Well, it's a lot of the, the ugliness that that happens there. And, um, anyway, it, it really changed me.
[00:12:36] I got to see, um, people, even though I thought I was in this desperate space, that oh my goodness, I wasn't gonna be able to go to college. I saw others that were escaping gang violence or escaping abusive relationships with their families or their significant others or single parents that had nowhere else to turn financially, and that they were truly in desperate spots.
[00:12:57] So even though I really felt like that, I was in this place of no hope, it gave me so much perspective to see all these people around me that, um, that didn't have a lot of the blessings that I had and, and that in some ways I was taking for granted, even though I had challenges, there were, there were others that had much more, uh, momentous challenges than I did, and they were still keeping their chins up and, and forging ahead.
[00:13:22] And so it really told me to, you know, you kinda gave me a swift kick in the rear and said, you know, this is, you've got these goods, you've been blessed these talents, you've, you have paths to follow that, um, aren't treacherous and aren't dangerous. You know, you have responsibility to lean forward into that.
[00:13:41] And so when I came back from my military, um, training and I had been away for a couple years, I had just been living on a couple hundred dollars a month. Um, as a private, you really don't have a lot of expenses and, and the army is very, um, generous in how they feed you and give you like, small allowances for clothes.
[00:13:59] And so I was able to come back with having direct deposited all my pay into the bank, actually where I now work. And, uh, a um, I was feeling all this hope and I was really excited to go back to college. I had some money saved up and I really thought, wow, I, I'm gonna do this, I, I have, you know, God has equipped me with the, these resources and I can now put them to use.
[00:14:21] So I, this family member takes me shopping cuz I had bulked up, I had eaten a lot of carbs and gotten some big muscles and, um, needed to get some new clothes. And this family member took me shopping and I wrote a check. And then about a week later, I got a notice from the bank that I didn't have any money in my account and my check was overdrawn.
[00:14:40] And this was back when they used to send you your checks in the mail and you could see all of those. And I found that a drawer in the family member's house and they had written checks the entire time that I had gone to the military, um, on my account. And what I thought I had was $15,000 in my account and was just gonna be plenty to pay for college back then.
[00:15:00] Um, now I had negative money in my account and they had sold me a car that didn't belong to them. And um, and it was impounded and it was just like, oh my goodness, like here I thought I had the path and I'm supposed to go to this, um, school where I was before. And I was, I was holding my head high cuz I had bought these new clothes, and had all this pride.
[00:15:20] And then it was like the, the light shut off again and it was time to go back to, to square one. So I went to the local, um, university, the local, um, library at the local university. And I didn't know that I could have gone to the bank and said that this isn't my signature and this is fraudulent, and they would've given my money back.
[00:15:39] And when you're in those, when you aren't well versed and someone hasn't told you about how banks work, you really, you know, you, looking back, it seemed silly that I didn't make that type of complaint, but I didn't know any better at the time. So I went to local uni, the local, um, library, got one of those big college books and started looking through them, finding, um, colleges that had my program and had they one at an ROTC program, and I called them all until I found the school in South Texas that was willing to give me a scholarship, a really lucrative scholarship if I could just find my way down there.
[00:16:12] And I was in the middle of Oklahoma and this was near, uh, the Mexican border. And so I had to figure out how to get down to, um, Kingsville, Texas, and um, got rides to make it there all along the way.
[00:16:26] And still had this feeling of kind of, um, like, why me? This is unfair, and, and really questioning why this path, uh, was being diverted. And all of that was so cleared up whenever I got to Texas A&I in Kingsville, Texas. And I walk into the ROTC department and I meet this person who I just know is going to be my best friend for forever.
[00:16:48] And his name is Marcus Castilla, who I ended up marrying. But, uh, Marcus became my best friend and, and I started understanding really quickly when I moved to, to Texas, and it was after these different bumps in the road. That I was being guided. What I thought was being these tragic circumstances that were re require me to make these changes and alter my course because of out of desperation, that these really were, uh, pathways around which I was being guided to intersect with the people that would be momentous in my life.
[00:17:23] And so I met Marcus. We, um, became best friends, fell quickly in love. Um, he was a year older than me. Um, he's not a real detail oriented person, which I know now, but back then I didn't know that. And he told me he was getting an educational delay to stay in school an additional year, which will allow me complete my fifth year, my engineering degree, and that we should get married.
[00:17:44] And so we got married and then he got orders to go to Hawaii and be stationed there. So we picked up, moved to Hawaii. Um, we were young and so I thought, well, let's just, I'll just start over school here in, in Hawaii, I was having trouble transferring credits. Um, and I was working in Hawaii. I had a t-shirt company along my, uh, my bosses there, um, suggested that I abandoned my engineering coursework where I spent four years in a tryout business and I could always go back to engineering whenever I came back to the mainland.
[00:18:13] So I was able to transfer classes to the local university who was very accommodating with my, my, um, transfer credits. And they gave me, like finance 1 0 1 for differential equations and linear algebra. They gave me like accounting 1 0 1 and I was, I took 33 credit hours a semester while I worked full-time there and got my finance degree in a year.
[00:18:34] And it was so easy, um, not because the university wasn't necessarily easy, but um, I just, when you're the path, when I wasn't resisting where I was really meant to go, it just, things got so much easier and I really found this great love for not only numbers, but also people and, and the ability to impact people through that degree program, and then working at the t-shirt company there in Hawaii.
[00:18:56] Um, during this time my mom married into the family that owns Citizens Bank of Edmond, where I work now. And, um, my husband felt called to be, go back to Oklahoma to go to graduate school. And we came back and I was able to go and work for minimum wage in that bank, that where, um, I had previously lost all, everything that I owned. Um, and then applied for my dream job. It was right when you could apply for jobs on the internet back then. Um, hotjobs.com and monster.com had just come out.
[00:19:25] I applied for my dream job at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and, um, was, um, interviewing for that job and had the people alongside me had gone to, um, extremely, uh, prestigious universities, which I had not, and they won all these different scholarships and medals and, uh, fellowships and I had not, and they were all quite a bit younger than me at this point in time. We had my, my husband and I had had a child already and I felt really out of place as I was going through this interview. And they went through this panel interview at the very end and just asked like, what's your greatest leadership challenge you faced as a college student?
[00:20:00] And I was able to say, well, I led a, um, survey where there was a group of, um, incarcerated men with chainsaws and machetes and axes who went out with me on a flatbed truck in the middle of nowhere. And, you know, I led them as they, you know, hacked away all the, um, debris so that I could shoot my, um, line of sight during the survey. And we did that for six weeks and got to be great friends. And, you know, something, a situation I thought was really scary, I ended up creating these relationships with friendships with these gentlemen, and I felt safe. And then we got the survey done really quickly and when I finished that interview, the gentleman came and sat next to me.
[00:20:37] He's just like, I just want you to know, that's the most extraordinary story I've ever heard from of a college student, and we wanna hire you. And, um, I could not believe that they had chosen me over these people that had gone more of a traditional path and, and that experience with the Federal Reserve, that they just continued to believe in me and encouraged me to speak my voice, and they gave me, um, the opportunity to get my master's degree in economics and go to graduate school banking, and there I fell in love with community banking again, and then the, the ghost of the, an echo of this woman who was so impactful to me when I was growing up, the community banker, um, that encouraged me to go to college.
[00:21:12] I started thinking, man, maybe I could be like her. And, and not just from a professional standpoint that but be the type of person and professional that could impact the lives of those that are maybe less fortunate in my community and, and lift up others so that, um, the whole world is a better place.
[00:21:29] And that, you know, this became very idealistic as the, the Federal Reserve has sent me to this training and I was able to go to a bank from there in northern Minnesota that with a classmate, um, from my banking school and went to a small town that wasn't that dissimilar from where I grown up in eastern Oklahoma, and was able to really see how wonderful, um, what it, how you could really be used as a tool, as a community banker to impact a community positively.
[00:21:57] Um, and then how much, because of this kind of journey through difficult times with the military and, and being someone that didn't have the easy resources to be able to achieve their potential, um, to, that had these, um, these roadblocks along the way that could have been discouraging to be able to look back on, on those periods of time in life and understand that these were just dots that were being connected to leave me where I am today.
[00:22:24] That they weren't obstacles at all. They were actually the defining moments and made me who I am. And, and the moments that were most shameful and that were most difficult, and the ones I wanted to keep in the dark were the actually the things that made me who I was and made me really reached war for the light because of that experience.
[00:22:42] And so, um, I got the call after being at the, the, in Minnesota for two years that our bank in, in Oklahoma was in trouble. And so, um, I was asked to come back, um, to Edmond, Oklahoma at the bank again, were I lost all my savings in the bank where I'd had that first minimum wage job, minimum wage job in banking now coming back to lead it through a turnaround.
[00:23:06] And so after coming back, um, in 2009, um, so now I've been at the bank for nine years. I've been through various positions and four years ago moved into the leadership role of president, CEO of the bank, and I also chair the bank holding company that, that oversees, um, all of the bank operations.
[00:23:24] And so, as that community banker, um, you know, again, kinda leaning on that, that reflection of the woman that impacted me so much growing up. Um, I can really see how we can impact our community and, and utilize the resources in a bank to, to have an impact, to have a, a, a long legacy of what this bank really means and what it can do. Um, we've done that by, um, revitalizing our downtown by launching a street festival that started with begging food trucks and three local bands and, um, a dozen pop-up shops to, to try out one Saturday evening to see if we could get people to show up in downtown Edmond, um, which had a lot of empty storefronts at the time.
[00:24:08] And that's turned into a festival that attracts over 40,000 people. Um, every third Saturday, march through October, and this is the fifth season that our bank has put this on, and our 50 employees that work at Citizens Bank of Edmond plan that event, they fund that event, um, they ensure that it keeps that energy going.
[00:24:27] We also cash mo cash mob local businesses and we're, we give money to our team members and they go to a specific business on a specific day, and they take pictures of what they bought with the certificates that they, that we've given them, and they post that on social media in order to highlight us that business.
[00:24:47] And then the whole community ends up, uh, rushing to that business that day to, um, increase the sales and, and really elevate, um, its appearance and, and visibility in the community. And then we do a lot of things that are not so public or visible where, uh, we now have the social capital that, um, that when the schools know that there's a family in need, we're the ones getting the call.
[00:25:12] And a few years ago it was a family that was, um, a woman and her young daughter that were escaping an abusive relationship and they left their home without, without anything. And so our bank, we, uh, rallied together and we were able to get them a car and he, and, and car insurance and a washer and dryer and, and furniture for their house and, and clothing and gift cards.
[00:25:36] Just the generosity of our team and, and our board members and our management. Um, it's a, it's a bank that has such a heart and a soul and, and that wants to be, um, an organization, a bank on a hill that's a beacon of life. That it's, um, it's able to impact in a community that's not just about, um, taking in deposits and giving out loans, but one that really feeds the soul of a community and makes it better, makes those that live there, um, have more opportunity.
[00:26:06] During this time, I went to get my haircut for the first time across the street from the bank. And I was cutting my hair, gave my haircut, and the lady said, well, why did you move back to Edmond? And I said, oh, to work at Citizens Bank of Edmond. And she said, she put down her scissors and said, um, you need to be careful. There is a lady there that's evil. And I said, well, I, I'm afraid you might be talking about me, and she said, no, no, you're sweet. And this, this kind little girl. And I said, no, I really think that you're probably talking about me, and she said, me And I said, no. She said no, um, this lady is going around and changing everything and she's firing people, which I hadn't, but that was firing people and creating all this unrest inside the organization.
[00:26:48] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, we learned how Jill Castilla's experience in the military prepared herself for leadership. She teaches us when to say no to authority, managing at the Federal Reserve, leading when people don't trust you and building a successful and strong community.
[00:27:11] Jill Castilla: So when I was growing up, you know, I'm this little, short, skinny, um, scrawny little blonde, very, um, soft-spoken, oftentimes very meek, very insecure growing up. Um, I never was turned to as being the leader in the group. You know, I'd always envisioned the leader, uh, to be large in stature, broad, you know, deep voice, most of the time, male.
[00:27:39] And that's, I didn't really see myself as being a leader and, and my limitations in how I view a leader were, were pretty narrow, and it took me a long time to really see the leader that's really in all of us. And, um, how situations that are presented to you really, um, help train you as a leader, but create those moments where, um, that leader, that's not the one that you would've naturally picked out of the crowd as being the one that would've stepped up.
[00:28:10] That it's the ma you know, oftentimes the person you least expect that is really able to rally others behind them in a cause. And whenever they're saying, let's charge up the hill, that they're not having to look back to see if people are following them. Um, you know, that passion is, is where I've seen it really.
[00:28:28] Um, it's not so much the person with the brute or the size, but it's whenever they have the passion and the convention conviction that really rallies others behind them, um, to um, to really take up cause, and I got to see that initially through the military.
[00:28:44] I really had never been exposed to, um, leadership training before, and, and you're pitted initially, um, kind of against it one another as you go through military training and it, the more traditional identifiers of a leader, are you, so the person that's the tallest or is the loudest or the most aggressive is the one that's uh, put into the leadership position. And then you see though over time that it's, it requires her to be, if the person that has the competence and the person that has the integrity and the person that is able to show respect for others and humility, but is also confident in their skillset, that that person is the one who evolves to become the one that everybody looks to as the leader.
[00:29:26] And it's almost never the person that, again, that you picked from the beginning. It's the one that, that has shown that consistency over time and isn't just a flash in the pan, that it's someone that, you know, um, others are gonna rally behind because they believe them when they say something, they believe it.
[00:29:43] Um, they know it's the truth and they know it's not just for the sake of being called the leader, that it's for the sake of everyone else. That they know that they need to step up to be the leader. And um, that was a really eye-opening for me, um, to go to a place the military is so wonderful for this and that you go somewhere, you're dressed all the same.
[00:30:05] You have no idea where anyone came from. You have no idea what anyone's schooling was or what family they came from or, or what their legacy of leaders had been in their family. And they just, who are who they are and everybody looks the same and they come with the same toolkit. Um, but it's just again, that, that how willing they are to learn and, and to become, um, credible in the the expertise, and then that integrity, that, that sometimes you assume that some have and they don't, and then you assume some don't, and they do. That exposes itself over time. Um, the military's just a wonderful way where anyone can step up to really be that leader. And, um, as a result of that experience, I, I think it gave me the ability to see leadership, um, more easily in those that may have been overlooked, um, by others as never really being a leader.
[00:30:58] And I certainly started seeing it in myself that, um, you know, if not me, then who. It's, it's, it's not a question of who you're picking to be the leader. It's that it's, it's really seeing that you have a responsibility to say something that's right. Um, whenever you're private in the military, um, they tell you you're required to obey all orders and there's a whole, um, these, all these general orders that you have to, um, memorize so that, you know, as a private you are responsible for following orders, but snuck, stuck in there, um, very eloquently is this responsibility that you have to refuse an order that's not lawful and there's not a definition of what an unlawful order is.
[00:31:39] It's just one that you know is not right. Whether it's explicitly against the law or, you know, it's not right. So even as a private, even even the lowest person, um, in the military has a duty, uh, to be a leader in whenever they see something that is not right. And that was very, very profound for me.
[00:31:58] Um, whenever I, I really, um, I went through formal, formal leadership training before I really saw, um, myself really elevate to a leader.
[00:32:08] I have been in a manager role during the Federal Reserve. I have been in leadership roles in the Army, but still kind of more from an accountability standpoint and not so much of a let's let's defeat some, um, enemy or let's rally to some cause. And I really wasn't faced with that until I, um, until I came back to, um, citizens Bank of Edmond when the bank was in trouble and I was asked from my family to come back to lead that turnaround.
[00:32:37] Um, so back in, um, In 2009, our bank was the worst performing bank in the state of Oklahoma and one of the worst in the, in the nation. It was rated the lowest you can be at for our bank and was on the verge of not surviving. The bank had been around for over 110 years. The same family had owned it for four generations.
[00:32:57] Uh, our team members, the employees owned the bank, a third of it through an esop. And when I came in 2009, it was an estate of disarray. It had just had an examination and they had uncovered some things that were improper, that were occurring inside the bank. My stepfather had asked me to come back and, um, to the bank to work there, and I was previously, uh, the senior financial officer in a, in a bank that was the same size as this bank in Edmond, where I was going back to, um, but the leadership, uh, in, in Edmond, um, offered me not a chief financial officer position like I was in, at the bank in Minnesota, but rather an assistant treasurer position.
[00:33:34] And then they also, um, offered me a 50% pay cut, um, to come back to Citizens Bank of Edmond. Um, and everything was, um, shown to me as being not really valuing the skills that I could bring back to the bank, and I initially said, you know, no thank you. I, I can't do this. I mean, I was ready to go, but my husband, who is such a great advocate for me, he said, you know, you've worked your whole career Jill, we don't, you don't wanna take this gigantic step back, um, to go to this bank.
[00:34:00] So I said, no. And my stepdad flew up to Minnesota and just said, I needed you. I, he said, I need you Jill. I can't make the financial things right right now, I can't make the title comparable to what you have right now, but I need you.
[00:34:13] So at this time, we have three kids, and my husband's has a job in Northern Minnesota, so he stays in Minnesota and I come back down with our three kids. I have to move in with my mom and my stepdad because we can't afford to live on our own. And I go work at this bank and, and instead of having a nice office with a window, they stick me in a closet, um, with, um, some file cabinets and a piece of plywood as my desk.
[00:34:35] And what I go back to this bank that I thought everybody would love me if I had worked there before. And I was really excited to come back to what people I really considered family. And my husband, who's so smart when it comes from an emotional intelligence standpoint, said, they're gonna really hate you.
[00:34:51] And I didn't believe him. And I came into the bank, and boy was he right. No one would talk to me, no one would respond to my emails. They would snicker and laugh. They would make fun of me. They would, um, say bad things about me and they would, um, they wouldn't tell me the truth. They would oftentimes, um, misrepresent what they were saying.
[00:35:10] Within just the first couple weeks, I found massive fraud within the institution. I found numerous, um, examples where there have been blatant, um, misrepresentations that were putting the institution at risk and a lot of behaviors that would not have been, um, appropriate in any kind of professional environment, especially a bank.
[00:35:30] Um, and I found myself, um, going back to that time as a private of, you know, here I have no power, I have no positional authority, I have, no one reports to me, no one can tell me, um, I can't make someone do things just because I'm telling them to, I have to influence the situation and is it better to just walk away from this or do I stay and, and, and say this is not right, and stand up to it and try to make a change.
[00:35:59] And, and at first there was one person, she was my supervisor when I worked at the bank previously, back in that bookkeeping department for minimum wage. And she knew me. And so she knew that what I was trying to do was to help the bank. And so she would help me research items and we'd find things that were suspicious and then we'd validate it and it would cause greater concern.
[00:36:20] And we would dig more and dig more, and we wrote both just ostracized from the rest of the bank. Um, there was no interest in helping us and they made fun of us. And, um, and there just wasn't, um... we felt like we were swimming way against the tide. And I would go into work at 6:00 AM with my kids, take them to school, pick them up and stay at work till midnight, seven days a week.
[00:36:43] And my little two year old, he re still remembers, um, highlighting things I ask him to highlight on a, a general ledger report. Um, put kind of everyone to work. But slowly and I, the first, the first, um, employee meeting I went to, and I started doing these every month and started reporting on the financial condition of the bank and the things that we were finding.
[00:37:04] The staff had crossed arms and these scowls on their face and these looks of distrust. And, um, and I could see that it was a hostile crowd, but I just kept really focused on not acting in my own self-interest, reporting only the facts, not getting caught up in the emotional things that I was really seeing, but calling something that was bad, bad and, and was celebrating things that were good and just being above reproach and everything that I did to ensure that I couldn't be questioned the same way.
[00:37:34] And slowly but surely, one by one we started gaining some others that, that wanted to save this bank, that wanted to, um, that knew that they couldn't continue going down the so safe path and still be able to keep this bank where it was this asset to the community. They know, they started to see as we were transparent and, um, and truthful and, and, and gave them all the information that we possibly could without judgment, but then also, um, restricting things that were improper.
[00:38:05] Um, there were some that really, really hated that, especially those that were partaking of live excesses and things that weren't appropriate. But one by one, we started getting some, some people that really understood the intention and the actions that were being taken. And even though it was really hard, um, they were coming over to the, the, the other side.
[00:38:25] And during this time, I went to get my haircut for the first time across the street from the bank. And I was cutting my hair, getting my hair cut, and the lady said, well, why did you move back to Edmond? And I said, oh, to work at Citizens Bank of Edmond. And she said, she put down her scissors and said, um, you need to be careful. There is a lady there that's evil. And I said, well, I, I'm afraid you might be talking about me. And she said, no, no, you're sweet, and there's this kind little girl. And I said, no, I really think that you're probably talking about you. And she said, me? And I said, no. She said, no. Um, this lady's going around and changing everything and she's firing people, which I hadn't, but I was firing people and creating all this unrest inside the organization.
[00:39:05] And so I did tell her that it was me. And then I, the three months later, I went to get my haircut again. But this time I went on the other side of Oklahoma City and this gentleman's cutting my hair. And he's saying, well, why did you move back to Oklahoma? And I said, well, to work at a bank. And I was trying to be kind of coy and not say which one it was, but he got it out of me.
[00:39:23] And as soon as he did, he said, oh my goodness. I hear there's a lady that works there, that's crazy, and I said, I think that you're actually talking about me. And he's like, no, same story. He's like, no way. There's no way. And I convinced him that yes, he is talking about me. I would go to Chamber of commerce meetings and I would inter say, Hey, I'm Jill. I'm gonna introduce myself to someone. And they would literally throw their hair hands up in the air and say, I know who you are, and turn around and walk away.
[00:39:50] Um, it was um, a time where I felt like my family, um, wasn't welcome in the community. I wasn't welcome, but I was determined that, um, this bank, cuz I would get calls from the community that would say, I just wanna know what's going on with my bank.
[00:40:05] And I would say, you know, your money's fine. Um, we're your F D I C insured. And they would say, no, you are missing the point. I care about this bank. This bank is important in my community. I don't wanna lose this bank. Is this bank gonna be okay? And I started seeing like this bank over 110 years, had built this great social capital.
[00:40:25] It was the same as that lady that had helped me when I was growing up. That was the community banker that helped me make sure that I was gonna go to college and see more for my life. This bank had done that for a hundred years for this community, and the community cared for it. I, it was a bank like, you're not supposed to care for a bank, but this is 2009.
[00:40:44] But no, they actually cared that this bank survived. It was their bank. And that that social capital beyond the financial capital that the bank was, which I was managing, you know, to the absolute extreme to ensure that everything was okay there. But I suddenly realized that the social capital that the bank had built was equally as important, and it was something that required some attention.
[00:41:07] Um, and then also, you know, just was so much more connected to who the community was than what I ever thought. I, and, and I started, um, speaking to one of my pastors and, and he talked about how important it is for a community to have, uh, to be a really, a successful community, to have a strong faith community, to have a strong educational system, and to also have the ability to fund these small businesses and, and have it where people can buy homes and, and have a safe place where they can, uh, put their money crowdfunded together to support one another, um, through lending programs.
[00:41:42] And, and so I, I started. Seeing myself really called to this position that it wasn't so much about, um, saying I'm going to be a leader or I'm gonna stand in the face of wrong or I'm going to do this, but it was more like, I wanna be an instrument of good, and so however God wants to use me in this role, whether it's being a servant or it's being a leader, um, whatever role that he wants me to play, that's what I wanna be.
[00:42:08] And I just fully leaned into it. And so seeing, um, how effortless that was, um, and just how that stream of moving water through this really treacherous path, um, that really took about four years for us to turn around this bank, that it, I was really guided and protected through that journey and, and really got to feel the responsibility of what it is to be a leader.
[00:42:33] And, and I think that surrender of really knowing that leadership isn't all about, isn't at all about the individual. It's about, um, doing good and, and motivating others to be able to elevate their performance, to be able to do good with you so that you can create something that's more than the sum of those parts that really is magical.
[00:42:56] And, and that's what that leadership infusion really provides is it's not a group of people being managed to complete a task, but it's something that takes those skills and talents and motivations of everybody that's involved and, and the leaders and within that and the leadership that all those individuals possess.
[00:43:15] A, as a rally around someone or, or a group of someone else's, um, elevates to performance that, that a manager would never be able to attain. And with that for, you know, it's really easy looking back on it, and I think this is can be a challenge for lots of leaders, is whenever you've got an enemy, it's really easy to rally around and have a leader defeat the enemy.
[00:43:38] And so, um, for us, we didn't want the bank to fail, so failure was the enemy. And, and once we got past failure being the enemy, then it became. It, it, I had almost a leadership crisis because I was in this role now. I was the leader of the bank. We had escaped, um, failure and had moved the bank to where now was financially sound.
[00:44:00] And then we had cut, recovered the reputation that, that the bank now had in the community, the reputation I had, the community had been saved. Um, but now you have this group of people that are now looking at you. The enemy's been beat the giant's, been tripped. You know, there, there's not the gigantic enemy there now.
[00:44:17] And now what do you do with these people and these resources that an organization has? Whenever there is no um, enemy that's trying to, to beat down the wall of the castle or burn down the house, it's, it's now trying to lead through hope and, and through having a vision and, and really taking, um, going through a journey in which it hadn't been tracked before versus, um, just reacting to circumstances that you're in.
[00:44:46] And that, that took a little bit for me to, to transition with that. And, and as a leader, I think it's really important, uh, in all of us and all of us have this leadership component within us and can be called to use it in different capacities. Uh, but it's so important to intersect with others that have been through trying times or that have, uh, found little leader leadership secrets and kernels of wisdom, whether it's through a book, whether it's through social media or reaching out to someone that you find inspiring and saying, I wanna have coffee with you, or my new, one, one thing I did was I said, my newest resolution is to meet Scott Williams and, and get him in front of me so that I can interact with someone. And, and you'll find if you make those, um, concerted, um, efforts to really intersect with these leaders, that you'll be shaped by them and that, um, they can help you through some of those trials in which.
[00:45:42] It's so much easier whenever, again, that you've got the trial in front of you, but when the trial goes away and now you're kind of finding yourself as a leader again, and where do you take something? You have to have those intersections with others and, and rubbing against the experiences that they've had in order to really sharpen your saw so that you can become that more, um, visionary leader going forward.
[00:46:06] And, and that transition from a, a overcoming something to being a visionary leader, um, is very, very rewarding and such a great way to transition and grow your own leadership skills. And there's a lot of people that have done that. And so, um, looking at military leaders for me is really helpful because they, um, there's some that really focus on, uh, winning the battle and there's others that, that really focus on winning the war.
[00:46:32] And you need the skillsets of both of those, um, to be able to be a successful leader and, and to encourage others to be successful leaders, to make sure that you can overcome task and overcome trials. But then overall you're trying to find a way in which you're winning the ultimate war that you're in, in a more positive way, really coming up with a vision and saying, this is what we wanna be, and then leading a group to really go and get there.
[00:46:57] I have this wonderful friend and he said, um, to me, we were talking about this very subject and he said it to me just two days ago and said, you never know when you're the only book that someone will read. And I just love that, that you have to know that what you're saying in your words, that you could be used as an instrument, um, to be able to convey an idea that no one has ever heard before, or truth that they may not see, um, or have used it as a gateway to, to further truth.
[00:47:27] And so we have a responsibility that if you do have a stage and you do have your, that your voice is being heard, that you are respectful, that those that are listening to your voice. This may be the, this may be the only book that they read.
[00:47:44] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, Jill Castilla reveals the importance of rallying others to believe in something and developing support within a community. As an introvert, Jill had to find the courage to step up and to face the fears so that she could operate using confidence within herself.
[00:48:06] She describes how to elevate your professional impact and the significance of sharing your personal testimony.
[00:48:16] Jill Castilla: I love the word legacy. It's probably a word that I overuse, uh, more than any other word. It's so amazing that the billions and trillions of people that have walked this earth, that we still have the capability to make a positive impact and lasting impact that it goes well beyond our mortal lives that each of us had the capability to do that, and we're all equipped to do that in our own special way.
[00:48:41] Um, so legacy is something that's really important to me. It's not about the legacy being known. I don't necessarily want, um, after I die and, and generations from now, that I want them to say that Jill did that. You know? So it's not really a pride thing.
[00:48:56] It's that I want there to be my community to be a better place because I got to be a part of it. And whether that's known or not means nothing to me, but I. I wanna be able to leave my mark that this, that this place is gonna be better after I've, I've occupied it.
[00:49:11] And if we can all do that, we all have the capability to do that, what an extraordinary gift that is to our children and our grandchildren. So, um, I inherited a legacy, you know, I was able to work professionally in, in a bank that's, been around for generations as part of it started before the statehood of Oklahoma and got to be part of building a, a state and a community and, and small businesses that have lasted for generations.
[00:49:36] And so, you know, just caring for that is so special. But then how do you elevate your professional impact, your personal impact on the world? To take that to another extreme, and I think the answer is, is that it has to be a mob. It has to be, uh, the mobilization of an effort. It has to be the, um, it's beyond just one single person. It's getting others to really believe in something and contribute to an a cause, um, to make, uh, what you're doing less about, um, a organization surviving another generation.
[00:50:10] But how do you make, um, the place you are better than whatever it was even considered to ever been, be intended to be. And, um, legacies are really tough too because it's not about just making what's good better.
[00:50:28] Um, it is about tackling hard issues that oftentimes puts you at risk, uh, for being politically, um, um, isolated even by saying that something is wrong or that something needs to change because it does re if, if you really are gonna make an impact, you have to make things a little bit uncomfortable and, and, um, change is never easy.
[00:50:49] And I think one of the, when we look at our legacy and our little, our little dot in the world of that we're trying to impact, it can be disheartening sometimes because once you start making a change, you will get others telling you that, um, that you're not doing the right thing, and, and there will be detractors and, and people that don't understand where you're trying to move as an organization or, or especially if you start developing almost a, a, um, a fanatic, um, support of where you're trying to go and that you get others that are really believing in that. And there's becoming this power and this collective, um, will to, to make a change or make something better, it will be threatening to others.
[00:51:31] And so it can be really easy to, to let off the gas and, and reduce the impact that you're really making and consequently the legacy that you're able to give to others.
[00:51:41] And so it's really important to. Put all that in context to reevaluate, am I doing this because I, my ego is outta control and I have this little saying, I have to say to myself as my ego is not my amigo, and trying to keep things pretty humble. Cuz you can start chasing legacy for being notoriety. Or that you want your name, carved in stone, whenever in fact you're wanting it to just be better.
[00:52:05] You're just wanting to make that impact, to elevate it so that there's less suffering in the world and that there's more opportunity and that there's more love and less hate. And so we have a responsibility whenever you're in a leadership role and whenever you're impacting others. And, you know, I feel like it's, I have an ex uh, uh, an extreme responsibility because I have financial resources that, um, can control or assist or, or diminish the ability to make an economic impact in additional to societal impact.
[00:52:36] And so it takes there to be a lot of self-reflection to ensure you're doing things for the right reasons and that you're not making it about you.
[00:52:44] I think another thing as a legacy is that you also can't be afraid to step up and say that it's you that believes, believes in something, something.
[00:52:53] Um, We're not all called to a stage and, and many of us, including me, don't seek a stage. But when you are called to step up and to lend your voice to something that you believe in, you've gotta be courageous enough to do that. And it's really easy to back off and, and, and others will tell you that, um, you know, you're self-promoting or that you, your ego is adrift or, um, that this is becoming all about you.
[00:53:21] I see that happening to my friends. They're doing such good work in the world, and they get these distractions of people trying to kind of pull them off the stage. They're saying these wonderful things. They're impacting lives. They're elevating people's awareness to challenges. They're in our, our world and our communities and a micro level to our brothers and our sisters.
[00:53:42] Um, and it's really easy to get pulled down and, and to, to, to quiet your voice. And, and that's where you have to really reexamine yourself and have people around you that will shoot you straight. Like if your ego is outta control, that someone's telling you that. But in order for you to make sure that you're really being impactful and that there's legacies of, of wonderful gifts that we're able to give to the generations behind us, it's important to step up into those moments.
[00:54:07] It's important to share your voice. It's important to tell your stories. It's important to share your shames and, and your challenges. And, um, I have this beautiful, and I hope I get this right cuz I didn't write it down and I didn't prepare to say this, but I have this wonderful friend and he said, um, to me, we were talking about this very subject and he said it to me just two days ago and said, you never know when you're the only book that someone will read.
[00:54:31] And I just love that, that you have to know that what you're saying in your words, that you could be used as an instrument, um, to be able to convey an idea that no one has ever heard before, or truth that they may not see, um, or have used it as a gateway to, to further truths. And so we have a responsibility that if you do have a stage and you do have your, that your voice is being heard, that you are respectful, that those that are listening to your voice is maybe the, this may be the only book that they read.
[00:55:02] You know, this may be the only time that they're able to get access to that thought or that experience, and, and to, to really be thoughtful with it, but not be. Don't be terrorized by it or be frightened by it, or be paralyzed by it, you know, have the courage to really step into that moment.
[00:55:18] Um, it's important for us all to tell our stories in order to be able to have effective legacies. Um, we can learn so much from one another and, and the more that we can connect and, um, be vulnerable with one another, another, and, and how we can see the world be a better place, the, the bigger and better that legacy that we have to offer will be.
[00:55:37] And so these diverse experiences that I've had from the military to, um, you know, just personal situations, to being in a bank, um, to going through educational systems, to living in lots of different places.
[00:55:54] The biggest gift that I've been given so far in my life, um, you know, outside and I'm talking about like revelations not kids and my marriage and those types of things, is how much alike we all are and the fear we all have, fears that we all have. We all wanna protect our families. We all, um, are scared of the future and excited by it that there's those that'll always have less than you and that only always those that have more than you, uh, from a financial standpoint or materiality standpoint or even intelligence or mental stability, and that we are all just so complicated, but we're all so similar and we all have, um, this connection of being so human, and it sounds so silly, but we, you can start looking at masses of people and not realize that they are, they have all of those same things that you would contain in your, your body and your mind. They have them themselves. And, and the more that you connect with others and learn their story, the stronger that you become, the wiser that you become, the better aware that you are.
[00:57:06] Um, I'm still, there's so many truths that are still, um, un unveiled whenever you are able to interact with others. And they happen to me all the time. Last week I was at a session about supporting, um, black female entrepreneurs. And I was there to be like, man, what kind programs can I do to help spur more economic growth?
[00:57:27] Because black female entrepreneurs are killing it compared to even other demographics. Their growth rates are off the charts. And I went to the session and I heard the stories of the lack of access that this group has to banking. And I was floored by that, that, that that was the case and embarrassed by it.
[00:57:47] And I think that you have, the thing that, the truth that comes out more than anything to me after going through all these different experiences and, and being around all these different people being thrust into these kind of unique circumstances, is there's still just so much to learn about one another.
[00:58:03] There's still, um, so many, uh, wrongs to rights and, and to write. And there's so many, uh, rights to make even better. Um, and, and I, I don't, I think we can get very isolated whenever we don't expose ourselves to other, um, experiences that we can just start thinking about how things affect you and the more that you can kind of get into someone else's shoes to really get into experiences in which you feel vulnerable. It gives you that empathy and understanding that other people don't want you to feel sorry for them. They don't wanna, they don't want a handout. They don't want, um, your sympathy. They, they want you just to understand them. And as long as we can seek to understand, and, and that's a gift that I really feel like that, um, I've been given over the years through these different experiences is this seeking to understand just this constant, wanting to learn how the world affects other people.
[00:58:57] And then how can I make that better for them? And I think the more that we can do that as individuals, the more that we can seek, um, those diverse experiences for us so that we can be humbled and that we can, uh, find those, those. Areas and those, um, that we need to grow, that we also then can connect with others that are having challenges or in circumstances that we're not normally exposed to and we really can understand the world better, understand one another better and become a better human as a result.
[00:59:24] So I think a great way for us to all be better humans, um, is to really share our stories and listen to the stories of others. Um, so I challenge you that next time you're at a dinner party or you're at a networking event, you know, it's so, and I'm an introvert, so it's hard for me to go around a room and just glad hand everybody.
[00:59:44] And what I find where I get the most joy is when I'm really. On a mission to learn someone else's story, someone that I don't know, or someone that I barely know, or someone I wish I would've known better. And just learning their story and then sharing parts of my story that connect with theirs.
[01:00:00] Um, that's how we really grow and how, um, our humanity expands and how we really see one another as, um, the, the culmination of feelings and emotions and insecurities that, that make up us all.
[01:00:17] Um, so I challenge you to do that. I think also sharing your story when, whenever that stage comes and you're called to it, you know, step up on it and tell your story so that you can be seen so that others can see the human that you are. Um, and that's not just all the good stuff. That's the stuff that, that you've tried to hide or that you are, have overcome, share that so other people can be inspired and, and moved by it.
[01:00:44] And third, look back on your life and, and draw out all those dots that connect to each other. Those things that may have been times of shame. They were triumphs, they may have been, um, periods of great joy or sadness, but when you look back on them, they're the, the moments that made you who you are, and write 'em down. You know, whether it's a little flow chart that's nice and beautiful, or just a list of events, but it, there's so much healing and just putting that all down and things that used to look shameful you to you whenever they happen when you were 18. Suddenly when you're looking back 20 years later, even though you can still carry that shame with you, you look back on it and you're like, well, that wasn't shameful. Going to the military wasn't shameful at all. That was actually a pretty amazing step for a 19 year old to make.
[01:01:33] Um, but it can heal you. And then also it gives you those talking points to whenever you're connecting with someone else, that you're able to share those moments. And, and those may have been things that you, um, guarded and covered up and have these teflon shields surrounding them now. But once you're able to acknowledge them, it really, you can uncover it and really creates an opportunity for it to connect with someone else. And I promise you, once you tell that first story and once you hear someone else's and you have that high of truly connecting humanity with someone else, um, you're gonna one another try at that.
[01:02:10] And that you will find that you are becoming a collector of stories and that when you share yours, it's not about boasting and it's not about bragging, but it's about sharing so that someone else is willing to share their vulnerabilities or shames, or triumphs with you.
[01:02:27] Steve Gatena: This is a powerful reminder that we are not in control of our lives, but that there is a divine plan at work. It can be difficult to trust that everything happens for a reason, especially when we encounter roadblocks and obstacles. However, as Jill Castilla's testimony shows these challenges can actually be blessings in disguise leading us to the people, places, and experiences that we need to fulfill our purpose.
[01:03:01] Jill's journey is a testament to the power of faith. It's a testament to the power of humility, and it's a testament to the power of perseverance. Despite facing numerous setbacks and challenges, she remains steadfast in her commitment to serving God and to serving her community.
[01:03:21] She recognized that true leadership is not about positional authority, but about influence and integrity, and she understood that leaving a legacy, a legacy of impact requires courage, willingness to tackle heart issues, and an excitement around embracing change.
[01:03:46] Ultimately, Jill's story reminds us that we're never alone in our journey. God is always with us. He's guiding us. He's protecting us. And even when we don't understand the path that we are on, He is there. When we trust in His divine plan for our life and remain faithful in the face of adversity, we can be assured that everything is happening in perfect order. We just have to keep moving forward, and we have to have a relentless hope in His plan for us.
[01:04:31] If you enjoyed today's podcast, please share it with someone you know you never know the impact one inspirational podcast can have on someone's life.
[01:04:45] Until next time, remember to give hope a voice.
Financial Hardship to Freedom - Jill Castilla
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: In times when our long cherished plans are disrupted, it's easy to succumb to fear and believe that God has abandoned us or is responsible for our disappointments and discouragements. However, this isn't how God operates, what we perceive as obstacles, setbacks, and detours are often the hand of God guiding and protecting us in divine ways.
[00:00:25] Even when we can't see it, God gently leads us towards the people we are meant to meet, the places where we should serve Him, and the experiences that will help us fulfill His divine plan for us. When faced with adversity, God also calls upon us to turn to Him. Through our faith and our love for Jesus, we can be assured that God is always by our side, offering his love, His support, His guidance, and His protection.
[00:00:59] We can humbly seek His wisdom and guidance through prayer, even when we're suffering or feeling discouraged. God's guidance and wisdom do not guarantee a life free from hardship, but they do ensure that our souls are always cared for and protected, regardless of what happens in this lifetime.
[00:01:23] We can trust in God.
[00:01:27] In this week's episode of Relentless Hope, Jill Castilla, the CEO of Citizens Bank of Edmond, exemplifies God's divine guidance and protection. Jill shares her story of overcoming unexpected obstacles and challenges on her journey to becoming the CEO of a bank in Edmond, Oklahoma. She discusses how she overcame financial struggles while paying for college, the time when a family member stole her car and $15,000, the new perspective she gained during her time in the military and how she helped her bank overcome the financial crisis.
[00:02:13] Jill learned to surrender to God, viewing her leadership positions as callings from Him. She never sought to become a leader, but rather wanted to be an instrument of good. She identifies the critical leadership traits that she's observed in others and tried to develop in herself, including competence, integrity, respect for others, and humility.
[00:02:40] Jill is dedicated to leaving a lasting impact on our community through her work at the bank, and she encourages others to be open and vulnerable with their stories, including their shames, their humiliations, and their triumphs. She reminds us that every experience in life shapes us and it molds us into the people that we are today.
[00:03:08] Indeed, God works in mysterious and miraculous ways that may be beyond our comprehension. However, when we look back on our lives, we can see how he has been divinely guiding and protecting us all along the way. This realization assures us that God is with us every step of the way.
[00:03:35] After leaving her small town in Oklahoma, Jill Castilla learned about the real world and joined the military.
[00:03:44] Jill Castilla: It, it really changed me. I got to see, um, people, even though I thought I was in this desperate space, that, oh my goodness, I wasn't gonna be able to go to college. I saw others that were escaping gang violence or escaping abusive relationships with their families or their significant others or single parents that had nowhere else to turn financially, and that they were truly in desperate spots. So even though I really felt like that I was in this place of no hope, it gave me so much perspective to see all these people around me that, um, that didn't have a lot of the blessings that I had and, and that in some ways I was taking for granted, even though I had challenges, there were, there were others that had much more, uh, momentous challenges than I did, and they were still keeping their chins up and, and forging ahead.
[00:04:31] And so it really told me to, you know, you kinda gave me a swift kick in the rear and said, you know, this is, you've got these goods, you've been blessed these talents, you've, you have paths to follow that, um, aren't treacherous and aren't dangerous. You know, you have responsibility to lean forward into that.
[00:04:53] Steve Gatena: On episode one of this three part series, Jill Castilla from Eastern Oklahoma finds a lit path out of the darkness. Named Community Banker of the Year by American Banker, Jill tells us about the roadblocks and challenges that were the defining moments of her life. She explains how she gained perspective through her time in the military and how she guided a bank out of near collapse.
[00:05:25] Jill Castilla: I'm Jill Castilla, um, I grew up in Eastern Oklahoma. Um, it's a small town, um, called Okmulgee. I had about 13,000 people that lived there. Um, it's a part of the state, uh, part, it's a city in Oklahoma that struggles a lot financially, and, um, during the oil bust we lost half of our population, and, um, that, so that's where I grew up. That was my hometown.
[00:05:46] And my parents got divorced when we were really young. And back then in this, in this community, there just really wasn't that many broken families. And so, uh, we moved in with my mom. Um, and that happened when I was in like first grade, kindergarten and, uh, we moved down around quite a bit.
[00:06:02] And then in fourth grade we were moved out of my mom's house and, and with my dad and both my parents had, um, several marriages and I, I grew up with my dad, who was a wonderful man and, and really raised me and my, my little sister at the time, um, really right. We were, we grew up in the church and we, um, had a large group of friends that were around us and a wonderful community that supported us.
[00:06:28] Um, but we really weren't encouraged to do anything, um, after high school. Um, we were kind of from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak. And, um, even though I had friends that were from, um, more the affluent families in town, you know, we weren't really expected to do, um, more than get married after we graduated from high school and, and kind of settle around where we were.
[00:06:50] And I started, um, working, um, In the local grocery store, um, just down from where I went to school and down from where I lived, and I would carry groceries out. And there was a woman in our town, she was the, the matriarch of the local banking family and sit on the, she was the chairwoman of the board of directors of the community bank there in Okmulgee.
[00:07:10] And I would carry groceries out for her and her husband. And every time she would see me, and this is when I was in high school, she would, um, ask me where I was going to college. And I didn't know where I was gonna college. I didn't even think college could be a possibility for me. Um, but every time she expected me to have an answer as to where I was gonna go and what I was gonna do and how I was gonna escape, um, this small town where I was, and that I would have other options she would tell me than, than just staying there and carrying out groceries.
[00:07:37] Um, and so the next time I seeing Mrs. Mabry as her name, Um, I would have some anxiety knowing that I needed to answer her as to what, you know, kind my hopes and dreams were. And, um, I also were waitress at the local country club and, and oftentimes I'd see Mrs. Mabry and I knew every time that I would come up to her, she was gonna ask me where I was going to college.
[00:07:57] And so I applied to two universities. Um, we really didn't have, like college counselors at our school. Most of the counselors there were to keep you outta jail or something bad happened, they, they directed us to where you could go and get some help. Um, but I, um, they had two applications to the state universities there and I applied to both of them.
[00:08:16] Um, I had to ask them to waive my application fee. I didn't know anything about financial aid or even if that was a possibility. And applied for both of the schools and got scholarships from each and one gave me $50 more than the other. So I, um, chose to go to Oklahoma State University. And my parents, um, weren't supportive of that and didn't, um, really understand the financial aid process so they wouldn't complete the paperwork so that I could apply for financial aid.
[00:08:42] So I had to get a ride to the local university, which is about an hour away from a friend, and, um, borrowed sheets and blankets and things like that so that I'd have, um, you know, tools to be able to live away from home and had savings from bagging groceries and working at the country club and some other little internships and odd jobs that I did.
[00:09:03] And I thought I was really set out to be able to go, um, to college. Okay. And I got a job at the, I was able to transfer to, with my grocery store job, to the one by the local university. I didn't have a car, uh, so I would, uh, work all night at the grocery store, bagging groceries, go to school during the day, um, and then I would, um, leave in the afternoon to try study and try being involved a little bit on campus. And then I would go back to, to work at the, at the grocery store. And the first year that all worked out just fine. But the second year I started really running into some walls with, um, financially and just having the, um, physical endurance to keep up that schedule and, and my hope started really fading.
[00:09:47] And so I would work all night and walk to and fro to where I was living and then I would go to class and it was just this kind of endless cycle and I felt like I was one step behind financially and motivation wise I was, even though I was doing well in school. Um, and I just wasn't able to maintain friendships and, um, my church life and spiritual life was really lacking.
[00:10:08] And um, I just started to feel like there was just lost. And right when I was at the end of kind of that rope and really feeling a sense of hopelessness, I had, um, it was a Thursday night and it was like two o'clock in the morning and I was carrying groceries out for this gentleman. And he just asked me, why are you doing this?
[00:10:27] And I said, I really wanna go to college and I just, I don't know if I can do it anymore, and, but I feel like there's more plan for me than, than just, you know, carrying out groceries for the rest of my life. And he said, you, you know, I don't wanna pressure you, but I'm an Army recruiter and if you enlist in the Army, you get to become an independent student, you can apply for financial aid on your own, um, you can get the GI bill when you go back to college. You can apply for, um, scholarships, um, with ROTC, and it literally felt like the heavens opened up and angels started singing.
[00:11:02] And it was, um, I felt like there was a way, like there was a lit, lit path, that I thought had gone dark, um, where I could find a way out. And I went the next morning and I signed up for the Army, and, um, my parents, my friends, my, um, anyone that knew me thought it was the craziest thing that I could possibly do, and, and they all told me that I wouldn't be successful in doing it, and, and none of them could understand why I would make that choice, and, and honestly, I, I kind of felt ashamed that I was making that choice. So I, it felt like there was a lit path for me, but then it also felt like something that I was doing I knew I was doing out of desperation, not from some sense of service.
[00:11:48] So, um, I packed up and went to basic training and was a construction surveyor, went through all of my requirements there, um, went to my unit, was the only woman, um, in my unit. And there, um, met some really extraordinary people, but went through a lot of challenges. This is early nineties, this is when all the bad stuff was happening in the military, it seemed like, to women that were in it.
[00:12:14] And, you know, I got to experience a lot of that and a lot of the, um, innocence of being this, you know, young girl from a small town, was kind of lost and I got to see the real world. Um, and a lot of the good in that. Well, it's a lot of the, the ugliness that that happens there. And, um, anyway, it, it really changed me.
[00:12:36] I got to see, um, people, even though I thought I was in this desperate space, that oh my goodness, I wasn't gonna be able to go to college. I saw others that were escaping gang violence or escaping abusive relationships with their families or their significant others or single parents that had nowhere else to turn financially, and that they were truly in desperate spots.
[00:12:57] So even though I really felt like that, I was in this place of no hope, it gave me so much perspective to see all these people around me that, um, that didn't have a lot of the blessings that I had and, and that in some ways I was taking for granted, even though I had challenges, there were, there were others that had much more, uh, momentous challenges than I did, and they were still keeping their chins up and, and forging ahead.
[00:13:22] And so it really told me to, you know, you kinda gave me a swift kick in the rear and said, you know, this is, you've got these goods, you've been blessed these talents, you've, you have paths to follow that, um, aren't treacherous and aren't dangerous. You know, you have responsibility to lean forward into that.
[00:13:41] And so when I came back from my military, um, training and I had been away for a couple years, I had just been living on a couple hundred dollars a month. Um, as a private, you really don't have a lot of expenses and, and the army is very, um, generous in how they feed you and give you like, small allowances for clothes.
[00:13:59] And so I was able to come back with having direct deposited all my pay into the bank, actually where I now work. And, uh, a um, I was feeling all this hope and I was really excited to go back to college. I had some money saved up and I really thought, wow, I, I'm gonna do this, I, I have, you know, God has equipped me with the, these resources and I can now put them to use.
[00:14:21] So I, this family member takes me shopping cuz I had bulked up, I had eaten a lot of carbs and gotten some big muscles and, um, needed to get some new clothes. And this family member took me shopping and I wrote a check. And then about a week later, I got a notice from the bank that I didn't have any money in my account and my check was overdrawn.
[00:14:40] And this was back when they used to send you your checks in the mail and you could see all of those. And I found that a drawer in the family member's house and they had written checks the entire time that I had gone to the military, um, on my account. And what I thought I had was $15,000 in my account and was just gonna be plenty to pay for college back then.
[00:15:00] Um, now I had negative money in my account and they had sold me a car that didn't belong to them. And um, and it was impounded and it was just like, oh my goodness, like here I thought I had the path and I'm supposed to go to this, um, school where I was before. And I was, I was holding my head high cuz I had bought these new clothes, and had all this pride.
[00:15:20] And then it was like the, the light shut off again and it was time to go back to, to square one. So I went to the local, um, university, the local, um, library at the local university. And I didn't know that I could have gone to the bank and said that this isn't my signature and this is fraudulent, and they would've given my money back.
[00:15:39] And when you're in those, when you aren't well versed and someone hasn't told you about how banks work, you really, you know, you, looking back, it seemed silly that I didn't make that type of complaint, but I didn't know any better at the time. So I went to local uni, the local, um, library, got one of those big college books and started looking through them, finding, um, colleges that had my program and had they one at an ROTC program, and I called them all until I found the school in South Texas that was willing to give me a scholarship, a really lucrative scholarship if I could just find my way down there.
[00:16:12] And I was in the middle of Oklahoma and this was near, uh, the Mexican border. And so I had to figure out how to get down to, um, Kingsville, Texas, and um, got rides to make it there all along the way.
[00:16:26] And still had this feeling of kind of, um, like, why me? This is unfair, and, and really questioning why this path, uh, was being diverted. And all of that was so cleared up whenever I got to Texas A&I in Kingsville, Texas. And I walk into the ROTC department and I meet this person who I just know is going to be my best friend for forever.
[00:16:48] And his name is Marcus Castilla, who I ended up marrying. But, uh, Marcus became my best friend and, and I started understanding really quickly when I moved to, to Texas, and it was after these different bumps in the road. That I was being guided. What I thought was being these tragic circumstances that were re require me to make these changes and alter my course because of out of desperation, that these really were, uh, pathways around which I was being guided to intersect with the people that would be momentous in my life.
[00:17:23] And so I met Marcus. We, um, became best friends, fell quickly in love. Um, he was a year older than me. Um, he's not a real detail oriented person, which I know now, but back then I didn't know that. And he told me he was getting an educational delay to stay in school an additional year, which will allow me complete my fifth year, my engineering degree, and that we should get married.
[00:17:44] And so we got married and then he got orders to go to Hawaii and be stationed there. So we picked up, moved to Hawaii. Um, we were young and so I thought, well, let's just, I'll just start over school here in, in Hawaii, I was having trouble transferring credits. Um, and I was working in Hawaii. I had a t-shirt company along my, uh, my bosses there, um, suggested that I abandoned my engineering coursework where I spent four years in a tryout business and I could always go back to engineering whenever I came back to the mainland.
[00:18:13] So I was able to transfer classes to the local university who was very accommodating with my, my, um, transfer credits. And they gave me, like finance 1 0 1 for differential equations and linear algebra. They gave me like accounting 1 0 1 and I was, I took 33 credit hours a semester while I worked full-time there and got my finance degree in a year.
[00:18:34] And it was so easy, um, not because the university wasn't necessarily easy, but um, I just, when you're the path, when I wasn't resisting where I was really meant to go, it just, things got so much easier and I really found this great love for not only numbers, but also people and, and the ability to impact people through that degree program, and then working at the t-shirt company there in Hawaii.
[00:18:56] Um, during this time my mom married into the family that owns Citizens Bank of Edmond, where I work now. And, um, my husband felt called to be, go back to Oklahoma to go to graduate school. And we came back and I was able to go and work for minimum wage in that bank, that where, um, I had previously lost all, everything that I owned. Um, and then applied for my dream job. It was right when you could apply for jobs on the internet back then. Um, hotjobs.com and monster.com had just come out.
[00:19:25] I applied for my dream job at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and, um, was, um, interviewing for that job and had the people alongside me had gone to, um, extremely, uh, prestigious universities, which I had not, and they won all these different scholarships and medals and, uh, fellowships and I had not, and they were all quite a bit younger than me at this point in time. We had my, my husband and I had had a child already and I felt really out of place as I was going through this interview. And they went through this panel interview at the very end and just asked like, what's your greatest leadership challenge you faced as a college student?
[00:20:00] And I was able to say, well, I led a, um, survey where there was a group of, um, incarcerated men with chainsaws and machetes and axes who went out with me on a flatbed truck in the middle of nowhere. And, you know, I led them as they, you know, hacked away all the, um, debris so that I could shoot my, um, line of sight during the survey. And we did that for six weeks and got to be great friends. And, you know, something, a situation I thought was really scary, I ended up creating these relationships with friendships with these gentlemen, and I felt safe. And then we got the survey done really quickly and when I finished that interview, the gentleman came and sat next to me.
[00:20:37] He's just like, I just want you to know, that's the most extraordinary story I've ever heard from of a college student, and we wanna hire you. And, um, I could not believe that they had chosen me over these people that had gone more of a traditional path and, and that experience with the Federal Reserve, that they just continued to believe in me and encouraged me to speak my voice, and they gave me, um, the opportunity to get my master's degree in economics and go to graduate school banking, and there I fell in love with community banking again, and then the, the ghost of the, an echo of this woman who was so impactful to me when I was growing up, the community banker, um, that encouraged me to go to college.
[00:21:12] I started thinking, man, maybe I could be like her. And, and not just from a professional standpoint that but be the type of person and professional that could impact the lives of those that are maybe less fortunate in my community and, and lift up others so that, um, the whole world is a better place.
[00:21:29] And that, you know, this became very idealistic as the, the Federal Reserve has sent me to this training and I was able to go to a bank from there in northern Minnesota that with a classmate, um, from my banking school and went to a small town that wasn't that dissimilar from where I grown up in eastern Oklahoma, and was able to really see how wonderful, um, what it, how you could really be used as a tool, as a community banker to impact a community positively.
[00:21:57] Um, and then how much, because of this kind of journey through difficult times with the military and, and being someone that didn't have the easy resources to be able to achieve their potential, um, to, that had these, um, these roadblocks along the way that could have been discouraging to be able to look back on, on those periods of time in life and understand that these were just dots that were being connected to leave me where I am today.
[00:22:24] That they weren't obstacles at all. They were actually the defining moments and made me who I am. And, and the moments that were most shameful and that were most difficult, and the ones I wanted to keep in the dark were the actually the things that made me who I was and made me really reached war for the light because of that experience.
[00:22:42] And so, um, I got the call after being at the, the, in Minnesota for two years that our bank in, in Oklahoma was in trouble. And so, um, I was asked to come back, um, to Edmond, Oklahoma at the bank again, were I lost all my savings in the bank where I'd had that first minimum wage job, minimum wage job in banking now coming back to lead it through a turnaround.
[00:23:06] And so after coming back, um, in 2009, um, so now I've been at the bank for nine years. I've been through various positions and four years ago moved into the leadership role of president, CEO of the bank, and I also chair the bank holding company that, that oversees, um, all of the bank operations.
[00:23:24] And so, as that community banker, um, you know, again, kinda leaning on that, that reflection of the woman that impacted me so much growing up. Um, I can really see how we can impact our community and, and utilize the resources in a bank to, to have an impact, to have a, a, a long legacy of what this bank really means and what it can do. Um, we've done that by, um, revitalizing our downtown by launching a street festival that started with begging food trucks and three local bands and, um, a dozen pop-up shops to, to try out one Saturday evening to see if we could get people to show up in downtown Edmond, um, which had a lot of empty storefronts at the time.
[00:24:08] And that's turned into a festival that attracts over 40,000 people. Um, every third Saturday, march through October, and this is the fifth season that our bank has put this on, and our 50 employees that work at Citizens Bank of Edmond plan that event, they fund that event, um, they ensure that it keeps that energy going.
[00:24:27] We also cash mo cash mob local businesses and we're, we give money to our team members and they go to a specific business on a specific day, and they take pictures of what they bought with the certificates that they, that we've given them, and they post that on social media in order to highlight us that business.
[00:24:47] And then the whole community ends up, uh, rushing to that business that day to, um, increase the sales and, and really elevate, um, its appearance and, and visibility in the community. And then we do a lot of things that are not so public or visible where, uh, we now have the social capital that, um, that when the schools know that there's a family in need, we're the ones getting the call.
[00:25:12] And a few years ago it was a family that was, um, a woman and her young daughter that were escaping an abusive relationship and they left their home without, without anything. And so our bank, we, uh, rallied together and we were able to get them a car and he, and, and car insurance and a washer and dryer and, and furniture for their house and, and clothing and gift cards.
[00:25:36] Just the generosity of our team and, and our board members and our management. Um, it's a, it's a bank that has such a heart and a soul and, and that wants to be, um, an organization, a bank on a hill that's a beacon of life. That it's, um, it's able to impact in a community that's not just about, um, taking in deposits and giving out loans, but one that really feeds the soul of a community and makes it better, makes those that live there, um, have more opportunity.
[00:26:06] During this time, I went to get my haircut for the first time across the street from the bank. And I was cutting my hair, gave my haircut, and the lady said, well, why did you move back to Edmond? And I said, oh, to work at Citizens Bank of Edmond. And she said, she put down her scissors and said, um, you need to be careful. There is a lady there that's evil. And I said, well, I, I'm afraid you might be talking about me, and she said, no, no, you're sweet. And this, this kind little girl. And I said, no, I really think that you're probably talking about me, and she said, me And I said, no. She said no, um, this lady is going around and changing everything and she's firing people, which I hadn't, but that was firing people and creating all this unrest inside the organization.
[00:26:48] Steve Gatena: On part two of this three part series, we learned how Jill Castilla's experience in the military prepared herself for leadership. She teaches us when to say no to authority, managing at the Federal Reserve, leading when people don't trust you and building a successful and strong community.
[00:27:11] Jill Castilla: So when I was growing up, you know, I'm this little, short, skinny, um, scrawny little blonde, very, um, soft-spoken, oftentimes very meek, very insecure growing up. Um, I never was turned to as being the leader in the group. You know, I'd always envisioned the leader, uh, to be large in stature, broad, you know, deep voice, most of the time, male.
[00:27:39] And that's, I didn't really see myself as being a leader and, and my limitations in how I view a leader were, were pretty narrow, and it took me a long time to really see the leader that's really in all of us. And, um, how situations that are presented to you really, um, help train you as a leader, but create those moments where, um, that leader, that's not the one that you would've naturally picked out of the crowd as being the one that would've stepped up.
[00:28:10] That it's the ma you know, oftentimes the person you least expect that is really able to rally others behind them in a cause. And whenever they're saying, let's charge up the hill, that they're not having to look back to see if people are following them. Um, you know, that passion is, is where I've seen it really.
[00:28:28] Um, it's not so much the person with the brute or the size, but it's whenever they have the passion and the convention conviction that really rallies others behind them, um, to um, to really take up cause, and I got to see that initially through the military.
[00:28:44] I really had never been exposed to, um, leadership training before, and, and you're pitted initially, um, kind of against it one another as you go through military training and it, the more traditional identifiers of a leader, are you, so the person that's the tallest or is the loudest or the most aggressive is the one that's uh, put into the leadership position. And then you see though over time that it's, it requires her to be, if the person that has the competence and the person that has the integrity and the person that is able to show respect for others and humility, but is also confident in their skillset, that that person is the one who evolves to become the one that everybody looks to as the leader.
[00:29:26] And it's almost never the person that, again, that you picked from the beginning. It's the one that, that has shown that consistency over time and isn't just a flash in the pan, that it's someone that, you know, um, others are gonna rally behind because they believe them when they say something, they believe it.
[00:29:43] Um, they know it's the truth and they know it's not just for the sake of being called the leader, that it's for the sake of everyone else. That they know that they need to step up to be the leader. And um, that was a really eye-opening for me, um, to go to a place the military is so wonderful for this and that you go somewhere, you're dressed all the same.
[00:30:05] You have no idea where anyone came from. You have no idea what anyone's schooling was or what family they came from or, or what their legacy of leaders had been in their family. And they just, who are who they are and everybody looks the same and they come with the same toolkit. Um, but it's just again, that, that how willing they are to learn and, and to become, um, credible in the the expertise, and then that integrity, that, that sometimes you assume that some have and they don't, and then you assume some don't, and they do. That exposes itself over time. Um, the military's just a wonderful way where anyone can step up to really be that leader. And, um, as a result of that experience, I, I think it gave me the ability to see leadership, um, more easily in those that may have been overlooked, um, by others as never really being a leader.
[00:30:58] And I certainly started seeing it in myself that, um, you know, if not me, then who. It's, it's, it's not a question of who you're picking to be the leader. It's that it's, it's really seeing that you have a responsibility to say something that's right. Um, whenever you're private in the military, um, they tell you you're required to obey all orders and there's a whole, um, these, all these general orders that you have to, um, memorize so that, you know, as a private you are responsible for following orders, but snuck, stuck in there, um, very eloquently is this responsibility that you have to refuse an order that's not lawful and there's not a definition of what an unlawful order is.
[00:31:39] It's just one that you know is not right. Whether it's explicitly against the law or, you know, it's not right. So even as a private, even even the lowest person, um, in the military has a duty, uh, to be a leader in whenever they see something that is not right. And that was very, very profound for me.
[00:31:58] Um, whenever I, I really, um, I went through formal, formal leadership training before I really saw, um, myself really elevate to a leader.
[00:32:08] I have been in a manager role during the Federal Reserve. I have been in leadership roles in the Army, but still kind of more from an accountability standpoint and not so much of a let's let's defeat some, um, enemy or let's rally to some cause. And I really wasn't faced with that until I, um, until I came back to, um, citizens Bank of Edmond when the bank was in trouble and I was asked from my family to come back to lead that turnaround.
[00:32:37] Um, so back in, um, In 2009, our bank was the worst performing bank in the state of Oklahoma and one of the worst in the, in the nation. It was rated the lowest you can be at for our bank and was on the verge of not surviving. The bank had been around for over 110 years. The same family had owned it for four generations.
[00:32:57] Uh, our team members, the employees owned the bank, a third of it through an esop. And when I came in 2009, it was an estate of disarray. It had just had an examination and they had uncovered some things that were improper, that were occurring inside the bank. My stepfather had asked me to come back and, um, to the bank to work there, and I was previously, uh, the senior financial officer in a, in a bank that was the same size as this bank in Edmond, where I was going back to, um, but the leadership, uh, in, in Edmond, um, offered me not a chief financial officer position like I was in, at the bank in Minnesota, but rather an assistant treasurer position.
[00:33:34] And then they also, um, offered me a 50% pay cut, um, to come back to Citizens Bank of Edmond. Um, and everything was, um, shown to me as being not really valuing the skills that I could bring back to the bank, and I initially said, you know, no thank you. I, I can't do this. I mean, I was ready to go, but my husband, who is such a great advocate for me, he said, you know, you've worked your whole career Jill, we don't, you don't wanna take this gigantic step back, um, to go to this bank.
[00:34:00] So I said, no. And my stepdad flew up to Minnesota and just said, I needed you. I, he said, I need you Jill. I can't make the financial things right right now, I can't make the title comparable to what you have right now, but I need you.
[00:34:13] So at this time, we have three kids, and my husband's has a job in Northern Minnesota, so he stays in Minnesota and I come back down with our three kids. I have to move in with my mom and my stepdad because we can't afford to live on our own. And I go work at this bank and, and instead of having a nice office with a window, they stick me in a closet, um, with, um, some file cabinets and a piece of plywood as my desk.
[00:34:35] And what I go back to this bank that I thought everybody would love me if I had worked there before. And I was really excited to come back to what people I really considered family. And my husband, who's so smart when it comes from an emotional intelligence standpoint, said, they're gonna really hate you.
[00:34:51] And I didn't believe him. And I came into the bank, and boy was he right. No one would talk to me, no one would respond to my emails. They would snicker and laugh. They would make fun of me. They would, um, say bad things about me and they would, um, they wouldn't tell me the truth. They would oftentimes, um, misrepresent what they were saying.
[00:35:10] Within just the first couple weeks, I found massive fraud within the institution. I found numerous, um, examples where there have been blatant, um, misrepresentations that were putting the institution at risk and a lot of behaviors that would not have been, um, appropriate in any kind of professional environment, especially a bank.
[00:35:30] Um, and I found myself, um, going back to that time as a private of, you know, here I have no power, I have no positional authority, I have, no one reports to me, no one can tell me, um, I can't make someone do things just because I'm telling them to, I have to influence the situation and is it better to just walk away from this or do I stay and, and, and say this is not right, and stand up to it and try to make a change.
[00:35:59] And, and at first there was one person, she was my supervisor when I worked at the bank previously, back in that bookkeeping department for minimum wage. And she knew me. And so she knew that what I was trying to do was to help the bank. And so she would help me research items and we'd find things that were suspicious and then we'd validate it and it would cause greater concern.
[00:36:20] And we would dig more and dig more, and we wrote both just ostracized from the rest of the bank. Um, there was no interest in helping us and they made fun of us. And, um, and there just wasn't, um... we felt like we were swimming way against the tide. And I would go into work at 6:00 AM with my kids, take them to school, pick them up and stay at work till midnight, seven days a week.
[00:36:43] And my little two year old, he re still remembers, um, highlighting things I ask him to highlight on a, a general ledger report. Um, put kind of everyone to work. But slowly and I, the first, the first, um, employee meeting I went to, and I started doing these every month and started reporting on the financial condition of the bank and the things that we were finding.
[00:37:04] The staff had crossed arms and these scowls on their face and these looks of distrust. And, um, and I could see that it was a hostile crowd, but I just kept really focused on not acting in my own self-interest, reporting only the facts, not getting caught up in the emotional things that I was really seeing, but calling something that was bad, bad and, and was celebrating things that were good and just being above reproach and everything that I did to ensure that I couldn't be questioned the same way.
[00:37:34] And slowly but surely, one by one we started gaining some others that, that wanted to save this bank, that wanted to, um, that knew that they couldn't continue going down the so safe path and still be able to keep this bank where it was this asset to the community. They know, they started to see as we were transparent and, um, and truthful and, and, and gave them all the information that we possibly could without judgment, but then also, um, restricting things that were improper.
[00:38:05] Um, there were some that really, really hated that, especially those that were partaking of live excesses and things that weren't appropriate. But one by one, we started getting some, some people that really understood the intention and the actions that were being taken. And even though it was really hard, um, they were coming over to the, the, the other side.
[00:38:25] And during this time, I went to get my haircut for the first time across the street from the bank. And I was cutting my hair, getting my hair cut, and the lady said, well, why did you move back to Edmond? And I said, oh, to work at Citizens Bank of Edmond. And she said, she put down her scissors and said, um, you need to be careful. There is a lady there that's evil. And I said, well, I, I'm afraid you might be talking about me. And she said, no, no, you're sweet, and there's this kind little girl. And I said, no, I really think that you're probably talking about you. And she said, me? And I said, no. She said, no. Um, this lady's going around and changing everything and she's firing people, which I hadn't, but I was firing people and creating all this unrest inside the organization.
[00:39:05] And so I did tell her that it was me. And then I, the three months later, I went to get my haircut again. But this time I went on the other side of Oklahoma City and this gentleman's cutting my hair. And he's saying, well, why did you move back to Oklahoma? And I said, well, to work at a bank. And I was trying to be kind of coy and not say which one it was, but he got it out of me.
[00:39:23] And as soon as he did, he said, oh my goodness. I hear there's a lady that works there, that's crazy, and I said, I think that you're actually talking about me. And he's like, no, same story. He's like, no way. There's no way. And I convinced him that yes, he is talking about me. I would go to Chamber of commerce meetings and I would inter say, Hey, I'm Jill. I'm gonna introduce myself to someone. And they would literally throw their hair hands up in the air and say, I know who you are, and turn around and walk away.
[00:39:50] Um, it was um, a time where I felt like my family, um, wasn't welcome in the community. I wasn't welcome, but I was determined that, um, this bank, cuz I would get calls from the community that would say, I just wanna know what's going on with my bank.
[00:40:05] And I would say, you know, your money's fine. Um, we're your F D I C insured. And they would say, no, you are missing the point. I care about this bank. This bank is important in my community. I don't wanna lose this bank. Is this bank gonna be okay? And I started seeing like this bank over 110 years, had built this great social capital.
[00:40:25] It was the same as that lady that had helped me when I was growing up. That was the community banker that helped me make sure that I was gonna go to college and see more for my life. This bank had done that for a hundred years for this community, and the community cared for it. I, it was a bank like, you're not supposed to care for a bank, but this is 2009.
[00:40:44] But no, they actually cared that this bank survived. It was their bank. And that that social capital beyond the financial capital that the bank was, which I was managing, you know, to the absolute extreme to ensure that everything was okay there. But I suddenly realized that the social capital that the bank had built was equally as important, and it was something that required some attention.
[00:41:07] Um, and then also, you know, just was so much more connected to who the community was than what I ever thought. I, and, and I started, um, speaking to one of my pastors and, and he talked about how important it is for a community to have, uh, to be a really, a successful community, to have a strong faith community, to have a strong educational system, and to also have the ability to fund these small businesses and, and have it where people can buy homes and, and have a safe place where they can, uh, put their money crowdfunded together to support one another, um, through lending programs.
[00:41:42] And, and so I, I started. Seeing myself really called to this position that it wasn't so much about, um, saying I'm going to be a leader or I'm gonna stand in the face of wrong or I'm going to do this, but it was more like, I wanna be an instrument of good, and so however God wants to use me in this role, whether it's being a servant or it's being a leader, um, whatever role that he wants me to play, that's what I wanna be.
[00:42:08] And I just fully leaned into it. And so seeing, um, how effortless that was, um, and just how that stream of moving water through this really treacherous path, um, that really took about four years for us to turn around this bank, that it, I was really guided and protected through that journey and, and really got to feel the responsibility of what it is to be a leader.
[00:42:33] And, and I think that surrender of really knowing that leadership isn't all about, isn't at all about the individual. It's about, um, doing good and, and motivating others to be able to elevate their performance, to be able to do good with you so that you can create something that's more than the sum of those parts that really is magical.
[00:42:56] And, and that's what that leadership infusion really provides is it's not a group of people being managed to complete a task, but it's something that takes those skills and talents and motivations of everybody that's involved and, and the leaders and within that and the leadership that all those individuals possess.
[00:43:15] A, as a rally around someone or, or a group of someone else's, um, elevates to performance that, that a manager would never be able to attain. And with that for, you know, it's really easy looking back on it, and I think this is can be a challenge for lots of leaders, is whenever you've got an enemy, it's really easy to rally around and have a leader defeat the enemy.
[00:43:38] And so, um, for us, we didn't want the bank to fail, so failure was the enemy. And, and once we got past failure being the enemy, then it became. It, it, I had almost a leadership crisis because I was in this role now. I was the leader of the bank. We had escaped, um, failure and had moved the bank to where now was financially sound.
[00:44:00] And then we had cut, recovered the reputation that, that the bank now had in the community, the reputation I had, the community had been saved. Um, but now you have this group of people that are now looking at you. The enemy's been beat the giant's, been tripped. You know, there, there's not the gigantic enemy there now.
[00:44:17] And now what do you do with these people and these resources that an organization has? Whenever there is no um, enemy that's trying to, to beat down the wall of the castle or burn down the house, it's, it's now trying to lead through hope and, and through having a vision and, and really taking, um, going through a journey in which it hadn't been tracked before versus, um, just reacting to circumstances that you're in.
[00:44:46] And that, that took a little bit for me to, to transition with that. And, and as a leader, I think it's really important, uh, in all of us and all of us have this leadership component within us and can be called to use it in different capacities. Uh, but it's so important to intersect with others that have been through trying times or that have, uh, found little leader leadership secrets and kernels of wisdom, whether it's through a book, whether it's through social media or reaching out to someone that you find inspiring and saying, I wanna have coffee with you, or my new, one, one thing I did was I said, my newest resolution is to meet Scott Williams and, and get him in front of me so that I can interact with someone. And, and you'll find if you make those, um, concerted, um, efforts to really intersect with these leaders, that you'll be shaped by them and that, um, they can help you through some of those trials in which.
[00:45:42] It's so much easier whenever, again, that you've got the trial in front of you, but when the trial goes away and now you're kind of finding yourself as a leader again, and where do you take something? You have to have those intersections with others and, and rubbing against the experiences that they've had in order to really sharpen your saw so that you can become that more, um, visionary leader going forward.
[00:46:06] And, and that transition from a, a overcoming something to being a visionary leader, um, is very, very rewarding and such a great way to transition and grow your own leadership skills. And there's a lot of people that have done that. And so, um, looking at military leaders for me is really helpful because they, um, there's some that really focus on, uh, winning the battle and there's others that, that really focus on winning the war.
[00:46:32] And you need the skillsets of both of those, um, to be able to be a successful leader and, and to encourage others to be successful leaders, to make sure that you can overcome task and overcome trials. But then overall you're trying to find a way in which you're winning the ultimate war that you're in, in a more positive way, really coming up with a vision and saying, this is what we wanna be, and then leading a group to really go and get there.
[00:46:57] I have this wonderful friend and he said, um, to me, we were talking about this very subject and he said it to me just two days ago and said, you never know when you're the only book that someone will read. And I just love that, that you have to know that what you're saying in your words, that you could be used as an instrument, um, to be able to convey an idea that no one has ever heard before, or truth that they may not see, um, or have used it as a gateway to, to further truth.
[00:47:27] And so we have a responsibility that if you do have a stage and you do have your, that your voice is being heard, that you are respectful, that those that are listening to your voice. This may be the, this may be the only book that they read.
[00:47:44] Steve Gatena: On part three of this three part series, Jill Castilla reveals the importance of rallying others to believe in something and developing support within a community. As an introvert, Jill had to find the courage to step up and to face the fears so that she could operate using confidence within herself.
[00:48:06] She describes how to elevate your professional impact and the significance of sharing your personal testimony.
[00:48:16] Jill Castilla: I love the word legacy. It's probably a word that I overuse, uh, more than any other word. It's so amazing that the billions and trillions of people that have walked this earth, that we still have the capability to make a positive impact and lasting impact that it goes well beyond our mortal lives that each of us had the capability to do that, and we're all equipped to do that in our own special way.
[00:48:41] Um, so legacy is something that's really important to me. It's not about the legacy being known. I don't necessarily want, um, after I die and, and generations from now, that I want them to say that Jill did that. You know? So it's not really a pride thing.
[00:48:56] It's that I want there to be my community to be a better place because I got to be a part of it. And whether that's known or not means nothing to me, but I. I wanna be able to leave my mark that this, that this place is gonna be better after I've, I've occupied it.
[00:49:11] And if we can all do that, we all have the capability to do that, what an extraordinary gift that is to our children and our grandchildren. So, um, I inherited a legacy, you know, I was able to work professionally in, in a bank that's, been around for generations as part of it started before the statehood of Oklahoma and got to be part of building a, a state and a community and, and small businesses that have lasted for generations.
[00:49:36] And so, you know, just caring for that is so special. But then how do you elevate your professional impact, your personal impact on the world? To take that to another extreme, and I think the answer is, is that it has to be a mob. It has to be, uh, the mobilization of an effort. It has to be the, um, it's beyond just one single person. It's getting others to really believe in something and contribute to an a cause, um, to make, uh, what you're doing less about, um, a organization surviving another generation.
[00:50:10] But how do you make, um, the place you are better than whatever it was even considered to ever been, be intended to be. And, um, legacies are really tough too because it's not about just making what's good better.
[00:50:28] Um, it is about tackling hard issues that oftentimes puts you at risk, uh, for being politically, um, um, isolated even by saying that something is wrong or that something needs to change because it does re if, if you really are gonna make an impact, you have to make things a little bit uncomfortable and, and, um, change is never easy.
[00:50:49] And I think one of the, when we look at our legacy and our little, our little dot in the world of that we're trying to impact, it can be disheartening sometimes because once you start making a change, you will get others telling you that, um, that you're not doing the right thing, and, and there will be detractors and, and people that don't understand where you're trying to move as an organization or, or especially if you start developing almost a, a, um, a fanatic, um, support of where you're trying to go and that you get others that are really believing in that. And there's becoming this power and this collective, um, will to, to make a change or make something better, it will be threatening to others.
[00:51:31] And so it can be really easy to, to let off the gas and, and reduce the impact that you're really making and consequently the legacy that you're able to give to others.
[00:51:41] And so it's really important to. Put all that in context to reevaluate, am I doing this because I, my ego is outta control and I have this little saying, I have to say to myself as my ego is not my amigo, and trying to keep things pretty humble. Cuz you can start chasing legacy for being notoriety. Or that you want your name, carved in stone, whenever in fact you're wanting it to just be better.
[00:52:05] You're just wanting to make that impact, to elevate it so that there's less suffering in the world and that there's more opportunity and that there's more love and less hate. And so we have a responsibility whenever you're in a leadership role and whenever you're impacting others. And, you know, I feel like it's, I have an ex uh, uh, an extreme responsibility because I have financial resources that, um, can control or assist or, or diminish the ability to make an economic impact in additional to societal impact.
[00:52:36] And so it takes there to be a lot of self-reflection to ensure you're doing things for the right reasons and that you're not making it about you.
[00:52:44] I think another thing as a legacy is that you also can't be afraid to step up and say that it's you that believes, believes in something, something.
[00:52:53] Um, We're not all called to a stage and, and many of us, including me, don't seek a stage. But when you are called to step up and to lend your voice to something that you believe in, you've gotta be courageous enough to do that. And it's really easy to back off and, and, and others will tell you that, um, you know, you're self-promoting or that you, your ego is adrift or, um, that this is becoming all about you.
[00:53:21] I see that happening to my friends. They're doing such good work in the world, and they get these distractions of people trying to kind of pull them off the stage. They're saying these wonderful things. They're impacting lives. They're elevating people's awareness to challenges. They're in our, our world and our communities and a micro level to our brothers and our sisters.
[00:53:42] Um, and it's really easy to get pulled down and, and to, to, to quiet your voice. And, and that's where you have to really reexamine yourself and have people around you that will shoot you straight. Like if your ego is outta control, that someone's telling you that. But in order for you to make sure that you're really being impactful and that there's legacies of, of wonderful gifts that we're able to give to the generations behind us, it's important to step up into those moments.
[00:54:07] It's important to share your voice. It's important to tell your stories. It's important to share your shames and, and your challenges. And, um, I have this beautiful, and I hope I get this right cuz I didn't write it down and I didn't prepare to say this, but I have this wonderful friend and he said, um, to me, we were talking about this very subject and he said it to me just two days ago and said, you never know when you're the only book that someone will read.
[00:54:31] And I just love that, that you have to know that what you're saying in your words, that you could be used as an instrument, um, to be able to convey an idea that no one has ever heard before, or truth that they may not see, um, or have used it as a gateway to, to further truths. And so we have a responsibility that if you do have a stage and you do have your, that your voice is being heard, that you are respectful, that those that are listening to your voice is maybe the, this may be the only book that they read.
[00:55:02] You know, this may be the only time that they're able to get access to that thought or that experience, and, and to, to really be thoughtful with it, but not be. Don't be terrorized by it or be frightened by it, or be paralyzed by it, you know, have the courage to really step into that moment.
[00:55:18] Um, it's important for us all to tell our stories in order to be able to have effective legacies. Um, we can learn so much from one another and, and the more that we can connect and, um, be vulnerable with one another, another, and, and how we can see the world be a better place, the, the bigger and better that legacy that we have to offer will be.
[00:55:37] And so these diverse experiences that I've had from the military to, um, you know, just personal situations, to being in a bank, um, to going through educational systems, to living in lots of different places.
[00:55:54] The biggest gift that I've been given so far in my life, um, you know, outside and I'm talking about like revelations not kids and my marriage and those types of things, is how much alike we all are and the fear we all have, fears that we all have. We all wanna protect our families. We all, um, are scared of the future and excited by it that there's those that'll always have less than you and that only always those that have more than you, uh, from a financial standpoint or materiality standpoint or even intelligence or mental stability, and that we are all just so complicated, but we're all so similar and we all have, um, this connection of being so human, and it sounds so silly, but we, you can start looking at masses of people and not realize that they are, they have all of those same things that you would contain in your, your body and your mind. They have them themselves. And, and the more that you connect with others and learn their story, the stronger that you become, the wiser that you become, the better aware that you are.
[00:57:06] Um, I'm still, there's so many truths that are still, um, un unveiled whenever you are able to interact with others. And they happen to me all the time. Last week I was at a session about supporting, um, black female entrepreneurs. And I was there to be like, man, what kind programs can I do to help spur more economic growth?
[00:57:27] Because black female entrepreneurs are killing it compared to even other demographics. Their growth rates are off the charts. And I went to the session and I heard the stories of the lack of access that this group has to banking. And I was floored by that, that, that that was the case and embarrassed by it.
[00:57:47] And I think that you have, the thing that, the truth that comes out more than anything to me after going through all these different experiences and, and being around all these different people being thrust into these kind of unique circumstances, is there's still just so much to learn about one another.
[00:58:03] There's still, um, so many, uh, wrongs to rights and, and to write. And there's so many, uh, rights to make even better. Um, and, and I, I don't, I think we can get very isolated whenever we don't expose ourselves to other, um, experiences that we can just start thinking about how things affect you and the more that you can kind of get into someone else's shoes to really get into experiences in which you feel vulnerable. It gives you that empathy and understanding that other people don't want you to feel sorry for them. They don't wanna, they don't want a handout. They don't want, um, your sympathy. They, they want you just to understand them. And as long as we can seek to understand, and, and that's a gift that I really feel like that, um, I've been given over the years through these different experiences is this seeking to understand just this constant, wanting to learn how the world affects other people.
[00:58:57] And then how can I make that better for them? And I think the more that we can do that as individuals, the more that we can seek, um, those diverse experiences for us so that we can be humbled and that we can, uh, find those, those. Areas and those, um, that we need to grow, that we also then can connect with others that are having challenges or in circumstances that we're not normally exposed to and we really can understand the world better, understand one another better and become a better human as a result.
[00:59:24] So I think a great way for us to all be better humans, um, is to really share our stories and listen to the stories of others. Um, so I challenge you that next time you're at a dinner party or you're at a networking event, you know, it's so, and I'm an introvert, so it's hard for me to go around a room and just glad hand everybody.
[00:59:44] And what I find where I get the most joy is when I'm really. On a mission to learn someone else's story, someone that I don't know, or someone that I barely know, or someone I wish I would've known better. And just learning their story and then sharing parts of my story that connect with theirs.
[01:00:00] Um, that's how we really grow and how, um, our humanity expands and how we really see one another as, um, the, the culmination of feelings and emotions and insecurities that, that make up us all.
[01:00:17] Um, so I challenge you to do that. I think also sharing your story when, whenever that stage comes and you're called to it, you know, step up on it and tell your story so that you can be seen so that others can see the human that you are. Um, and that's not just all the good stuff. That's the stuff that, that you've tried to hide or that you are, have overcome, share that so other people can be inspired and, and moved by it.
[01:00:44] And third, look back on your life and, and draw out all those dots that connect to each other. Those things that may have been times of shame. They were triumphs, they may have been, um, periods of great joy or sadness, but when you look back on them, they're the, the moments that made you who you are, and write 'em down. You know, whether it's a little flow chart that's nice and beautiful, or just a list of events, but it, there's so much healing and just putting that all down and things that used to look shameful you to you whenever they happen when you were 18. Suddenly when you're looking back 20 years later, even though you can still carry that shame with you, you look back on it and you're like, well, that wasn't shameful. Going to the military wasn't shameful at all. That was actually a pretty amazing step for a 19 year old to make.
[01:01:33] Um, but it can heal you. And then also it gives you those talking points to whenever you're connecting with someone else, that you're able to share those moments. And, and those may have been things that you, um, guarded and covered up and have these teflon shields surrounding them now. But once you're able to acknowledge them, it really, you can uncover it and really creates an opportunity for it to connect with someone else. And I promise you, once you tell that first story and once you hear someone else's and you have that high of truly connecting humanity with someone else, um, you're gonna one another try at that.
[01:02:10] And that you will find that you are becoming a collector of stories and that when you share yours, it's not about boasting and it's not about bragging, but it's about sharing so that someone else is willing to share their vulnerabilities or shames, or triumphs with you.
[01:02:27] Steve Gatena: This is a powerful reminder that we are not in control of our lives, but that there is a divine plan at work. It can be difficult to trust that everything happens for a reason, especially when we encounter roadblocks and obstacles. However, as Jill Castilla's testimony shows these challenges can actually be blessings in disguise leading us to the people, places, and experiences that we need to fulfill our purpose.
[01:03:01] Jill's journey is a testament to the power of faith. It's a testament to the power of humility, and it's a testament to the power of perseverance. Despite facing numerous setbacks and challenges, she remains steadfast in her commitment to serving God and to serving her community.
[01:03:21] She recognized that true leadership is not about positional authority, but about influence and integrity, and she understood that leaving a legacy, a legacy of impact requires courage, willingness to tackle heart issues, and an excitement around embracing change.
[01:03:46] Ultimately, Jill's story reminds us that we're never alone in our journey. God is always with us. He's guiding us. He's protecting us. And even when we don't understand the path that we are on, He is there. When we trust in His divine plan for our life and remain faithful in the face of adversity, we can be assured that everything is happening in perfect order. We just have to keep moving forward, and we have to have a relentless hope in His plan for us.
[01:04:31] If you enjoyed today's podcast, please share it with someone you know you never know the impact one inspirational podcast can have on someone's life.
[01:04:45] Until next time, remember to give hope a voice.
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