STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga.–It’s all Greek to John Bratsakis. And that’s just the way it should be, he said.
Bratsakis, president and CEO of the Maryland/DC Credit Union League, offered his perspective to the African American Credit Union Coalition meeting here as part of a series of people sharing “legacy lessons.”
In Bratsakis’ case, his legacy is closely tied to his immigrant predecessors, explaining he is a second-generation Greek-American.
‘We Owe It’
“We owe it to the people who came before us to pay it forward for the future,” Bratsakis told the meeting. “What informed my perspective is my Greek background. My family came to American in 1911. My grandmother came in the 1930s. So, my first thing in relationships is being authentic. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is authentic.”
Bratsakis spoke several times of his grandmother, whom he described as “very strong.” When she was told by doctors she had cancer and would live six to seven more days, his grandmother responded, “Who are you, God? You are no god.”
She went back to Chicago and lived six more years, he said.
Lesson from Grandmother
The primary lesson he said his grandmother emphasized was never to apologize for being Greek.
“You should not to be scared of who you are and that has instructed me. If you interview as someone else and get the job and then you become you, they didn’t hire you; they hired the other person.”
Bratsakis said he was taught when he was younger a lesson summed up by the observation that integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.
Trust is One Thing, But…
In addition, he said he also learned of the value of trust when he played football. In a team sport, he said trust is about focusing on others and having each other’s back. “I have the same thing with people I work with,” he said.
But trust is one thing, sill is another, especially when you’re a 5’7”, 170-pound defensive lineman, Bratsakis added, quoting a former coach as saying, “I can’t win without you, but I can’t win with 11 of you, either.”
It’s Called Fresh for a Reason. And We Offer Home Delivery. For Free!
The biggest, best and freshest news reporting in credit unions remains free in ’23! Each morning CUToday.info delivers its daily Fresh Today news update offering the latest headlines and breaking news right to your email, with the easy-to-read headlines format allowing you to click on the stories that interest you most in order to learn more.
If you haven’t yet signed up for the new email solution on which CUToday.info has partnered with ResponseGenius, you can do so here. Signing up requires less than one minute of your time—and it’s free!
Please note that after signing up you may need to go to your Spam/Junk folder and mark the morning headlines email as safe. CUToday.info does not provide its list of readers and emails to outside parties, and we will not be contacting you to sell you an extended warranty or sending you any links so you may cash in on an inheritance you didn’t know was coming.
And did we mention it’s free?
Please note and/or make your IT department or email administrator aware the emails will be coming from the domains CUTodayinfo.com and CUTodayinfoReply.com