Life and Career

I started my career as a top producing loan originator in Denver in 1983. I ultimately ended up assisting the President of the United States (photo in header) advising on housing policy during the Great Recession - housing crash. The path from A-Z was anything but straight.

In the beginning, young and without fear I attacked my business with an effort to prove that I was better than my peers. In youth ego drives a lot of motivation. The desire to achieve recognition demands that you excel. Fortunately for me, I came from a background of selling office equipment for Lanier Business Products. Each day I made at least 30 in person cold call attempts. Rejection was fierce. I was kicked out of office buildings and rejected by receptionists all day, every day, in hopes of getting that one sale.

When I joined the mortgage business, most of my co-workers had been doing this a long time. They were licking their wounds over the mid teens interest rates and reminiscing about the days when rates were much lower. So for me, ignorance was bliss. I had nothing to reflect on and simply hit the streets doing what I had done on the past. Truth be told, the lack of selling skills in my industry was simply an opportunity for me to shine. And in relative terms I did. Going from a new job to a loan a day, roughly 20 loans a month, in a really slow market, I closed just over 240 loans my first full year.

I quickly began advancing my career. Branches, then regions, then divisions. Because we were expanding out of a terrible recession, the Oil Patch Crisis, we were growing nationally and my family was moved all around the country, eleven moves in ten years. To this day I remain close friends with so many who worked for me as LO’s in the beginning of their careers and today run channels of large national lenders, own their own mortgage companies, and are themselves very successful in their own journey.

The turning point was when I was recruited east, by Freddie Mac. I ultimately became the head of Single Family for them, was then subsequently recruited by my largest customer Wells Fargo as EVP of wholesale lending, then convinced to stop traveling so much and come into a large real estate firm, Long and Foster, as President and COO of the company.

I would probably still be there today had President Obama not been elected amidst the worst recession since the Great Depression and a housing crisis that created it. I was asked to go through Senate Confirmation to become the FHA Commissioner and join the Presidents Housing Team. So President Obama nominated me, and I was confirmed by the senate into that role. Such a crazy path from a loan officer from the 1980’s.

Ultimately, after leaving the administration as all “politicals” do eventually in an any administration, I became CEO of the MBA in DC.

But all of this changed in 2016. I was diagnosed with an incurable stage 4 cancer that I still fight today. I left the MBA at the end of 2018 and today run a consulting practice that has me far busier than I ever expected. A cancer diagnosis, especially a terminal one, changes everything. It challenges ones psyche, creates fears for the ones you love, and completely disrupts your life priorities.

But I often reflect back on success, at least my success. And while my path is unique, as is the one each of you take, I know that success for me came from a few key core values.

1. Passion: Energy, enthusiasm, and approaching every task, every sales event, every business relationship, even every member of congress, with the goal of winning their mindshare. Whether to take my mortgage product or ultimately to buy into my policy objective. To win, you have to have that passion.
2. Take Risks: My first move from loan originator to manager was a pretty significant pay cut. The 11 moves in 10 years for my family was costly to us in a variety of ways. We had children born in Denver, California, and Virginia. My cold call sales strategy was to get rejected as many times in a day as possible in order to get that one win. Taking risks can mean risking money, career, quality of life, rejection, and more to achieve your long term goals. When I made the largest move to go work for a US President, I had a 90% pay cut with no promise as to what the future would hold. But the risks, for me, where the only way to achieve that.
3. Surround yourself with diversity: People who think differently than you, who bring skill sets that you don’t have, who have been raised differently than you can help you be more successful. And most importantly make sure that the diversity of leaders on your team are not placating you but are challenging you. I honestly cannot tolerate those who seem to be simply agreeing with me as they may think that’s what I want. The best decisions come from honest, diverse, skill sets, and profiles including gender, race, sexual orientation, and the types of skills they have that augment yours.
4. Lead: Leading versus managing is a critical element that differentiates. People need room to grow, but the organizational vision and the passion to achieve this comes from its leader. But remember, passion and vision cannot be forced on people. The team has to buy into the vision, and there are so many proven methods to get the team where you want - but in the end they have to own that same vision as you.

As I said in the beginning, as a young LO it was about EGO, success, competition. Today with a life threatening disease, my focus has shifted to family, travel, friends, and quality of life. But in truth, as anyone who works with me today knows, my roles in my career were about building new successful businesses, or turning struggling businesses around. And today I use my passion and energy to talk about cancer, and to provide as much optimistic leadership to as many people as I can along the way.

I’ll end with this; many of you may have attended one of my more recent presentations. In them I use fresh economic data to paint a positive view of the future. I do this because I believe that we all must practice optimism at all times. Just as I did in 1983 as a new LO, the goal for all of us should be to not get dragged into the negativity that can surround us from peers, co-workers, our personal health issues, or other external events. Practice optimism enthusiastically and make it a habit. You will be the one that differentiates yourself from the rest.