Average = Zero

"Be Obsessed or be average" - Grant Cardone.

I LOVE the mortgage industry! I'm passionate about everything we do from operations, origination, closings, underwriting guidelines, processing, I mean EVERYTHING. Daily I wake up at 5:00 AM, walk my dog "MJ" 5 miles in the neighborhood we live in and during that time I'm on the phone talking about mortgages with either a new client, sometimes past clients, Shawn Fehily (the only person I've known who's as passionate if not more about mortgages than I am) about what we have going on in terms of growth, current obstacles, and other fun stuff that we see as opportunity to be more successful.

I also listen to books during this time to further educate myself on how to be better, get insight and ideas on how to be more successful, and ways to improve anything in any area of life. Work is a part of my morning routine too. I get in front of the day by checking/ responding to emails, texts, and voice mails. Lastly before I start getting ready to head into the office, exercise a little more for good measure.

All of these things I do; exercising, working, game planning, communicating with my team and on and on and on, not because I have to, but because I'm literally possessed by the insatiable hunger to accomplish more than I did the day before. Recently on top of what I was already doing, I added walking the 5 miles with an 80 lbs. weight vest, increased the amount of time that I listen to books by an hour, and I talk to at least 1 of our clients doing a loan or who has done a loan with us every morning (even if we have nothing to discuss). Why? For all reasons that I can boil it down to, the results all end up in one place... Fear of being average.

Behavioral Science tells us that we are born with 2 fears. The 1st falling. The 2nd Loud noises. Then life happens and new fears are born. I don't want to be unrealistic and say that you can be fearless. Fear is considered to be a great thing from many successful people's perspective. If you aren't scaring yourself, you're comfortable. Although fear is needed, it's a cancer, weed, bad habit, or lack of good habits possibly that needs to be cured. What is the the solution, or cure for fear?

No story that's ever told or held in admiration involves a person, place, or thing that is average. We (the collective we) doesn't care about average. If you get up in front of an audience and talk about something that everybody in the crowd has done and isn't different, you won't have an the attention of the audience very long right?

What makes people part of an audience vs. the person who on stage is that the person on stage has done, or is doing something above and beyond ordinary. The more out of the ordinary and unique that is, the more attention it grabs and the bigger the audience gets. Think about all of the TV shows, movies, concerts, public seminars, or anything that you were part of an audience. Why were you there? Was it to see or be a part of something average?

The questions asked so far are rhetorical. If you were at an event that wasn't impressive chances are you would either not attend again or leave. You most likely attended an event to enhance something about yourself, to inspire you to break out of being average. You watch TV shows and movies, read books, go to concerts to be entertained and escape reality from the average daily routine we all do.

The answers that you want and the escape that you seek are all because average isn't what you want. The answers to become more than average are simple. The answers to get past your fears are too. The key ingredient... is courage.

The British SAS (one of the most feared military special forces teams in the world) has a motto which is "Fortune Favors the Bold". If you read/ listen to any books written by these extremely bold and brave Men, or watch any documentaries about them you will come to understand that they live and breath this motto. There are countless sayings in all cultures that all communicate the same thing; "The early bird catches the worm", "If you're not first you're last", and "One key to success is to have lunch at the time of day most people have breakfast" and on and on and on.... So how does this relate to courage?

Being the first to do something different, bold, out of the ordinary, or even the first to get out of bed in the morning sometimes takes courage. It's something you absolute control over and have all the choice in the world to make. So what happens if you try being bold and it doesn't have the outcome you want?

It may hurt. Everyone has been hurt. That's average. You may be embarrassed. Everyone has been embarrassed (also average). You may succeed at doing what ever it is and the reaction isn't good or bad (which means that you weren't being bold enough), but you proved to yourself that you could do something and now you have to go bigger. All of these result in proving that you can, and the more you prove you can, the more courage you gain, and the less fear you have, right!?

So how does this tie into what I do, and what makes me different, and why are you taking the time to read this? There are a lot of examples that I want to share, but the one that is most relevant to how I got involved in the mortgage industry is what I'll share.

In 2004 I was "living my best life"!!! I was 25 years old. My primary job DJ at the time. I made good money (just over six figures), had crowds of people who knew me, I ate free wherever I went that was close to where I worked, had a boat, nice car, and was generally happy. To back up shortly, I only became a DJ because I was scared to death of doing it. After 7 years I felt that I reached my peak in my career as a DJ, and I wanted something more.

A friend of mine was working as a loan officer, told me a little about, and at first I was too confused to even know WTF he did. So I decided to dive deeper. Eventually I got hired on as a Loan Officer Assistant. My first day was July 5th, 2004. I still had no idea how to spell mortgage or even VA.

Literally everybody I knew told me that this was a bad idea. Here are some examples of what friends AND family told me; "Why would you want an office job? You have the best job in the world why would you want to do anything else. You're going from working in a party, to working in an office". I only knew I wanted something more, and it had to be challenging.

Within my first month I was promoted to a Loan Officer. Within 1 year, I was promoted to run a team. Within 2 years I was promoted to run my own branch. Looking back at each milestone what made me successful is that I was doing everything different from everybody around me. I hated making phone calls, what did I do? I made more phone calls then everybody around me. I hated getting up early and being one of the first to get there. What did I do? I got up early so I could be the first to get there. I hated having to update my managers. What did I do? I updated my managers before they could ask me for an update. I did all of this in spite of what I liked and what was comfortable, because I identified what I liked, and what was comfortable was what everybody else was doing, because above all else I hate being average.

In 2006 the mortgage industry started collapsing. It was really hard for everybody during this time. Fear and uncertainty transformed our country for almost 7 years. It was hard for anybody in mortgages. It was depressing at times. Co-workers and work acquaintances were having to file bankruptcy, had their homes foreclosed on, collections on credit cards, and most of them left the mortgage business behind. I began to doubt my ability, and my professional expertise during this time as well. I remained a mortgage professional and never left the industry for one simple reason. I wasn't going to let fear get in the way of something that I was exceptionally good at because of what everybody else was doing. I got better, I worked harder, I honed my skills, and transformed into a better mortgage professional because I didn't let fear dictate my life, or my profession.

I always challenge myself. Every year I set out to conquer at least 1 fear that's holding me back in both my personal and professional life. This year so far I just accomplished overcoming 1 fear that nearly kills 2 birds with 1 stone.

On 04/15/2019 we decided to take a rather large financial risk by launching a radio ad campaign on 102.9 NOW KDXM. For us, this is bold! The cost is bold! The reason is to overcome what I see as our #1 challenge in our market place... Obscurity. Will it be successful? Yes. Why? Because we believe in it. We chose a station, time frame, audience, and content that was bold, and we are going in head first ready to get bruised knowing that (in the famous words of FDR) "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself".

The second part of this challenges how I perceive myself, and my own insecurities. Before our ad went live on Monday morning, I got little to no sleep the night before. Hearing my voice on a recording isn't my favorite thing. It never has been. How was the audience going to react? Will anybody make fun of me? What if competition copies us? Is anybody going to listen? What if nobody likes the ad? For every doubt that crossed my mind, I had to just remind myself that it didn't matter.

What matters is that we did it. We didn't back down because of the cost. We did it our way, and we did something that our competition isn't doing much of right now. The action we are taking puts our name out in the universe for others to know, has a positive and upbeat message, and assists in solving our #1 obstacle in our market.

Since the ad first aired yesterday, I've gotten complements on how great it sounds, tons of congratulations, and yes... applications are coming in too!!! We still have a long way to go. There are more challenges that are coming, and I feel like we haven't even gotten started yet.

There are plenty more stories to share with anybody who wants to know, a lot of other difficult experiences that I've been a part of, survived and I'm more than happy to share my stories with anybody who's interested and wants a good laugh!!! If anybody knows me, one thing that I can assure you of is that I may not be the best story teller, but boring, average, and ordinary aren't usually part of the description.

Cheers!

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face and say to yourself 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along' . You MUST do the thing which you THINK you cannot do" Eleanor Roosevelt