At 45, Joe Stewart flew to Florida for what he was told was a team meeting. It was not. His father's investor group had decided to sell the bank holding company Joe was running — and nobody had told him.

Eleven years later he walked away from a bank he'd grown from $60 million to over $200 million, on his own terms, at his own price. This episode is the whole arc: how a 20-year-old who wanted to work on the New York Stock Exchange became the entire collections department of a small Missouri bank by accident, how he clawed his way to owning the smallest bank in the group, and then exactly — step by step — how you sell a company. The investment banker. The two years of cleaning up financials so you're "the prettiest girl at the dance." Fifteen buyers down to ten, down to six, down to two. Highest and best. And the day the wire finally ...