Welcome to The Pillars of Purpose podcast with your host, PJ Crescenzo. This is The show where every week we have real conversations about what it looks like to improve our faith, our family, our fitness, our finances, and ultimately have a life of fun. If you're looking to build on pillars that last and you're looking to have a life of purpose, this is The show for you. Thanks for tuning in and look forward to today's episode. Welcome to The Pillars of Purpose podcast. Today, I have Ryan Grant, who personally has funded just under $2 billion in production. He's extremely passionate about raising The standards for our industry and embracing The future of homeownership. He is a husband, he is a faTher, he is a featured icon in Absolutely. So we're going to dive right in. This is an opportunity for me to get to know you a little bit better, but also for The audience to get to know you better. So who is Ryan Grant and what was The first job that Who is Ryan Grant? That's a loaded question. I grew up in a super small town in NorThern California, was gonna be an attorney growing up. Well, I wanted to be in The NBA first, Then when I realized that wasn't gonna happen, I wanted to be an attorney. I was pretty passionate about being a civil rights attorney and creating some change and impact There. Throughout college and high school, I had worked for a lot of attorneys. Long story short, realized law was not about justice. It was about loopholes. Didn't find a lot of fulfillment in that. Didn't know what to do. Ended up getting in The mortgage industry completely by happenstance, like most people, and just kind of evolved through The industry from The time I was 22, which was really my first kind of real professional job. You asked what my first job was overall. I worked for a company called Ameriquest started in 2005. And man, if I write a book or if I don't, somebody should write a book about that company because it Okay. So The guests might not know this or They definitely don't know this, but I shared with you before we recorded The way that I first discovered Ryan grant was on a 10 year old YouTube video, but The level of clarity and The quality of The content, if I drop a link in The comments, it'll probably blow up and get 10,000 views. Uh, but it was such clear operating frameworks of what The process should look like. So I'm going to dive right into clarity and kind of get tactical, but I think it applies to really any business, even though we're talking about mortgages in particular, When did you first start to develop The understanding that There was a better way for The process to go? Was it a mentor? Was it just organic understanding? What did this look like as you just started to really get into how everybody Yeah, I think evolution is a term I probably overuse, but you know, in 2011 I didn't have any knowledge. I could never done a purchase loan, never met a realtor, never helped anybody buy a house. I didn't have a database. So I didn't really know what I was doing. I had spent from 25 to 2010 just doing refis or managing people that did refis. Um, so in 2011 when I first started going out, introduced myself to realtors, trying to get people to trust me, it was a, I jumped in and learned how to swim after I was in The water, and I quickly realized that if I didn't want to work 18 hours a day, that I needed a system, I needed a team, I needed a process, I needed scalability. I spent The first probably four years of my career trying to figure that out on my own and just trial and error. Hire somebody. They weren't The right person. I didn't hire The right way. I didn't lead The right way. I didn't train The right way. I didn't set a vision. I was just a bad leader. I was just leading out of necessity without any real vision or direction. And Then I got exposed to coaching. I didn't know you could get a coach in The mortgage industry for The first four years. Was fortunate to be around some really incredible mortgage professionals in 2015. And that opened my eyes to what The business of mortgage could look like. If I stopped running it like a very overworked hobby, and if I started really focusing on creating a systematic, repeatable, scalable process to deliver my best intentions. And from 2015 to 2018, I really was able to create something special along with my team. Like if I didn't find The people I found, They are largely, I give The credit to Them for figuring out our process and our strategy. And Then 2018 started to realize, okay, well, I figured out how to sell debt to a lot of people, but I did not figure out which was how to really make an impact in Their life, right? How to, you know, help someone go from owning a home to being a successful, well-rounded, generationally wealthy homeowner. And that ended my journey from And what is The difference between those two things? I mean, I have like six questions I could ask you from what you just shared, but let's just dive into, you know, let's say a loan officer's listening to this. I do 10 million, 20 million, 40 million, whatever my level of production is. What's The difference in helping somebody become a homeowner and Then going from that shift to, you know, a generationally wealthy homeowner. But what does that mean Yeah. So if you look at, uh, wealth in this country, wealthy people aren't wealthy because They have money. They're wealthy because They have information. And people have enough information to know that They should buy a home or They want to buy a home, mainly because it's in our DNA. Like, we founded this country based upon The ability to own land, right? So this is a generational desire to own land because it started in The 1700s when we fought a war for it. So we know enough to know that we should own land, but Then once we own it, Then what? What most people do is They buy a home, They live in it, and They pay for it, full stop. But They don't do all The oTher million oTher steps to create safety, security, growth, opportunity, awareness, because that's a taught skill. That's not an inherent understanding. And when I realized The difference between The two of those things, that's what I started offering to my clients. I started offering Them a commitment to help Them longterm in ways that no oTher realtor or lender had done to that point, at least for Them, right? In my experience. And that has evolved ever since. So we, you know, when we talk to you, if you were my client, I'm going to say, Phil, if you thought we were helpful for The last 30 days, you're going to be blown away as we do for you and your family for The next 30 years. We're going to help you in every aspect of real estate and finance and liability management and coverage and protection. And we're not going to do it reactively. We're going to do it proactively. So here's what you can expect from us. And Then we just lay out our entire blueprint for The first year and for every year after. Wow. And you know, every year we're helping our clients set goals, create awarenesses They didn't necessarily have, figuring out what's going on with Their parents and Their children so They can plan intergenerationally. We feel responsible for The success or lack Thereof of The clients that we serve because that's what gives us You're almost taking The approach of a financial wealth manager as an originator. Everything, protection, wealth, goal set. Because wealth managers never are taught about real estate or They're not encouraging Their clients to invest in real estate because it's kind Yeah, for The S&P 500 or wherever They want to place Their money. So The first question that comes to mind as I hear this is this beautiful a cultural blanket that I just want to wrap around everybody on our team because The vision and The mission sounds beautiful. The first thing that I would think for many of my originators is The bandwidth issue of like, what does it actually look like to implement this and honor this? So walk me through what it looked like to actually implement this and what have been some of The greatest challenges or maybe successes that you've had in actually sticking to this commitment of, we're going to be here beyond closing. Because I think most loan officers say that, hey, I'm going to be here for you, but There's zero game plan from The minute The wire hits. So what does it look like to actually building The capacity and The systems in The process to Yeah, it's a great question. And it's probably The question The mortgage industry needs to be asking and answering itself. OTherwise, we are going to drive each oTher into The ground. We're just going to be cheaper and cheaper and cheaper because we're selling The exact same product. And so when I came up with this idea in 2018, it was a very empowering idea. I was super excited about it. I just had no Yeah. So I was excited, but I didn't know, like, okay, what can I really say? What can I offer? What can I do without being disingenuous or selling a bill of goods, right? Because There's two things that piss me off in this industry. One is people that don't do anything post-closing for Their clients, just wait for Them to call Them back. And two is even worse is when people say They're going to do something for It's even worse, right? Just tell it how it is. Like, PJ, I'm going to give you a loan and you're not going to hear from me again. Yep. Nobody's going to say that, obviously, because it's not a good sales tactic. And so what I did initially is I just started adding different services that I could offer. an annual financial review where I would call The clients once a year and overview Their finances and what I was doing. And Then I'd add like some form of, we call it real estate wealth digest, wheTher that's home report, Thermobus highway, home bought, home IQ. There's a lot of Them that, you know, can give your client post-closing value. There's liability management, right? Mortgage and debt management. There's kind of big data awareness of, okay, what's happening in my client's life? Are They pregnant, divorced, kids leaving The empty nest, death in The family? There's all The data out There in The world that can help us help our clients navigate those things. There's home concierge services because once you buy a home, nobody teaches you how to understand how to take care of that home or do proactive maintenance. So we just kept finding little things that would help. And I was fortunate at The time when we were creating this that I had a 16 plus person team, right? We were helping 50, 60 families a month. And so I had scalability, but what I wasn't doing well is I wasn't actually like making The phone calls to my past clients. And I realized that was a brain chemistry problem because as a hunter, right, you're always out looking for new loans. New business partners, new opportunities, helping new clients. It's a very different orientation or fulfillment level than what I would consider like The gaTherer or And that was gonna be my question. When you're making These calls, because I mean, it almost seems like a spiritual dilemma in a way, because we have a lot of believers that listen to this. Are you genuinely making The call because you want to help this person, like to educate Them? Or is from a production mentality and growing revenue and sales, is There a sales component to The call? Like what bucket would you put The farming mentality in? Is this fruitful for organic growth or is this, hey, regardless of what we get out of it, this is just our, moral commitment to Great question. One that no one's asked me before, but super insightful. Um, when I was doing it, I had The lean towards sales because I don't know. Um, maybe, um, The answer is maybe, I think time will tell, but what happened was, you know, you help 50 families a month for long enough. There's no way you're going to make those phone calls. It would take your entire day every day. Yep. There's no way you're going to add post-closing value. And so I asked my coach, I said, Hey, I'm failing at this. And I feel like a liar and I'm out of integrity with my clients and my business partners who can make These calls. Looks at me square in The eyes and he goes, whoever's going to make Them. And it was like this blinding flash of The obvious where I said, okay, we are going to hire and train specifically for this. And so hired my first client success manager in 2018. And Their job was to do nothing oTher than add post-closing value to our clients. So They did The post-closing call explaining The next 30 years, They did The 90 day, you know, refer to CPAs, financial planners, estate planning attorneys, make sure They have The right wills and trusts, make sure The coverage on The home is appropriate, umbrella policies, make sure that all The T's are crossed and The I's are dotted for things that people just don't inherently do. Setting strike rates, six-month mortgage check-ins, liability management, annual financial reviews every single year. So now we just trained that person in holistic wealth. We trained Them in personal finance. We trained Them in all things real estate, real estate adjacent. And we gave Them a comp plan that was more commensurate with impact And what does that look like from a quantitative standpoint? So five-star review, somebody said, Hey, you helped me save $500 a month in my budget. You protected me from, you know, gap insurance because I got into an accident. Like what, how do you measure impact through The lens Yeah. So anytime, well, first of all, They get paid a good salary. Um, so that is sustainability. And Then anytime They actually perform an annual financial review. All right. And Then They send it out to us and The real estate professionals. So we can see what are we planning for, for The future? What If They, if They give a referral from our client to one of our CPAs, financial planner, state planning attorneys, if They get a referral from one of those people or to one of those people, If They connect to us with The HR department at Their company, so we can become The preferred lender for Their organization. If They set and deliver on a strike rate, There's so many different things that are not necessarily like immediate results based, but So have you found... So three tactical questions. The first one is, have you seen ROI from Client Success Manager? Is that a yes or no? Immediate. Yeah. Okay. So ROI on Client Success Manager. How important are your vendor relationships to fulfill this commitment to post-closing? And have you had Very important. And yes. You know, we started off just by trying any vendor we could think of. And Then, you know, we ran into problems where some of Them weren't scalable, some of Them The client didn't find value in, some of Them our team didn't find value in. And so we've just been on this constant journey. And, you know, now that we are, we have, in my opinion, The best technological platform in The country combined with real scalability, we can take a lot of minutia off The plates of our team and allow Them to really refocus Their intentions. And so They have more time to teach our clients how to use some of These services. They have more time to check and see if They're being used and how They're being used and train clients. And so it's, you know, it's definitely a systematic thing. And I believe you know, to your earlier question to anybody that hears that and says, dude, I'm helping five families a month and I'm buried. Like I couldn't imagine doing any of that stuff. My answer would be, you shouldn't. Like someone came up to me at a conference one time I got done speaking and he goes, man, I just, I have to admit to you that I want to be that thing, but I'm just, I'm not calling my past clients. And I looked at him and I said, you shouldn't call your past clients. He's like, you just got off stage talking about how, you know, past Wow. All right. So I want to go a step deeper. So from a mortgage workflow, database, data bank management perspective, beautiful, right? The, The concept, The commitment, The, even The value take me into The mindset of Ryan for wheTher I'm in The mortgage business or I'm in any professional services based role, what allowed you to be willing to hire your first coach? What allowed you to be willing to identify that you weren't good in an area and you're willing to improve? And what caused you to not work 18 hours a day when most of The industry just puts a blindfold on and does it anyway? Like, what were some of The things that were going through your mind and your commitments to yourself that So let's take those in order. The Um, you know, I had a coach my whole life. Um, since I was four years old in martial arts, my faTher was my instructor and wrestling coach, uh, boxing coach, basketball, football, you name it. I like anything I wanted to get better at. I always had a coach. I just never put two and two togeTher that There was such a thing as a professional coach because The environment I started in was an unhealthy subprime environment where, you know, The leadership modeled really poor behavior, and They did not invest in anything oTher than somebody making money. So I just wasn't aware. I didn't have The awareness that There was such a thing as professional coaching. You know todd duncan was like The first person i had awareness of because he came to one of our sales rallies and so we went to disneyland. Big sales rally They brought him in and i feel in an hour i had ten pages of notes. I've always been a voracious competitor, and so if I feel like somebody has something that I don't, that boThers me, especially if I know I can have it. If I just do The work, I can have that too. He was saying all These things, and I'm like, that must mean oTher mortgage professionals are doing everything he's talking about. That's crazy. I didn't even think of half of These things. And so Then I was able to get into that elite program and I surrounded myself with oTher mortgage professionals that were really running great businesses. They figured scale out, They figured out process, They created freedom for Themselves to kind of live in Their genius zone at different varying levels in different ways. And that was something that I, you know, aspire to because I remember I was on stage and I was just about to go out and give a presentation to a thousand plus mortgage professionals. And my pregnant wife was in The front row. And I was about to talk to people about like scale and all These oTher things, but I knew in my head that I, was somewhat of a hypocrite, because even though I had it somewhat figured out, I was still working way too many hours. And that was not something I was willing to trade, like my time for my family or my mental health or my physical health. I knew that success is a, There's a lot of depth to The word success. It's not just how many loans you close and how much money you make. And so that was a really important part of The maturation of our business was I don't want to create scalability for me, but to create a vision of what's next and growth for my team. Um, because my team was, They're just amazing humans. And if I just stayed status quo or even increased by 50% or a hundred percent, all of Them would still be doing exactly The same thing They're doing today that They were doing in 2015, The exact same job. And that's a soul crushing experience for anybody. And so I looked at my team and I said, if I want Them to be leaders, if I want Them to grow and have Them reach Their full potential, I need to 10X this thing. That's Wow, dude, I'm getting fired up and inspired with every thread we're going on. So let me just capture a couple of things that I want The listeners to hear, which was one of The first questions from your first role. The way that I would ask this is, what behavior is your leadership team modeling? Because you were in an environment where your leadership team was not modeling The ideal behavior that you wanted to follow. The oTher thing which you answered subconsciously, but answered it, which was, my question was, so number one was hiring The coach, but The second was, what gave you The ability to maximize The experience of The coach? And Then it went to being competitive, right? Cause you were saying oTher people have a lot of success, so you wanted to be competitive. So Then that ties me into The next question, which is, The purpose of The show, Pillars of Purpose podcast, it resonates with exactly what you just said. It's not about only winning in one area. It's about truly building a life of integration where you can win at work and win at home. So help extrapolate for me, what does success look like for you? How have you adjusted as The seasons have gone on? Because you started working a lot of hours. Was it your first child? Was it mentors, coaches, like how have you evolved? Because I know a lot of producers today, They want to work less hours, They are committed to trying to be a better husband, a better faTher, but They haven't cracked The code yet. So I don't think There's a, you don't like reach a level of success and Then check The box. Success is a moving target. And it is a constantly, Self-evaluating experience right so wow for me to be successful in from twenty eleven when i started i helped. Thirty some odd families for eleven million dollars in total volume right i was. $80,000 in debt, They just took my car back, my house was $400,000 underwater. I was getting to The point where I really wanted to ask my girlfriend, who's my now wife, to marry me, but I carried a lot of shame and guilt around my financial situation. Success to me at that point meant creating a baseline level of security and stability. Just Right, like I'm just trying to get The baseline level of like, don't live on The streets. Once you hit that, Then okay, now what is The next level of success? Status. And how can I do it in a way that I'm aware of The holistic portion of success? because There was a time when I was very much coached out of balance. Everything that I was coached on was more money, more dollars, more loans, more this, more that. And it was kind of intoxicating, especially coming out from a pretty bleak situation in 2010. Thinking through, someone was like, oh, I paid cash to put a pool in my house. I'm like, Where does somebody have that much money? Like how do you like, it's crazy, right? So again, like success is different, but. I didn't always, and I still don't, at no point do I have it nailed. It's just a constant awareness of where am I out of balance? Where am I focused? What are The difference between my health, my mental health, my family, my personal relationships, my leadership, and business productivity? Where am I struggling? And this is like a quarter by quarter assessment of What needs more attention at this time? And There's a concept of purposeful imbalance where you need to go a little harder in one direction to kind of scale up The oTher ones, right? That's good. That's a great framework. There's not going to be like, oh, I realized I was successful here, right? Now I'm leading a multi-billion dollar mortgage company, so my success is going to be very different than when I was originating, when I just started, or when I was leading a team, or when I was leading a division. My success today is going to be determined from a business perspective on how successful clients of Neo become. and how successful our team becomes, right? Because that's now what I'm focused All right. So I want to take one step deeper on Ryan, and Then I want to transition to The winning team because I've heard a lot of team framework. So I really want to expand what it looks like on a team. And Then I'm going to come to you for The future of The industry because that's something I want to get your insights on. So before we transition away from you as a leader, as an individual, what are some non-negotiables that you try to honor today in your current role? Husband, faTher, Yeah, it starts selfishly with, you know, put your mask on first. You know, The concept of, you know, planes going down, The adult puts Their mask on first. And as a kid, I was like, that's selfish. Like, put my mask on. I need help. And you realize, well, if your parents passed out, no one's putting your mask on. And so as a leader, as a parent, as a spouse, as somebody leading Themself, you have to take care of yourself first. Energy is our number one currency, more than time, more than money. And so if we don't take care of ourself first, we're not gonna have enough energy to do anything else productive, right? So morning routine, extremely important to me. And Then from There, being aware of when I start, when I stop. Part of my morning routine is I read this Ryan Holiday book called The Daily Dad. Just one page that kind of gets me focused on like, okay, be aware of this with The kids today and implement this lesson or something. And Then just be where your feet are. I think that that's a really challenging thing for a lot of people. Like right now, I'm talking to you, everything is shut down, no emails, no anything else, no phone. And I've seen people really try and straddle The line where it's like, oh, They're doing this, but They're also doing this. pay attention to Their kids or They go on vacation and They still have Their computer and it's like, where's your priority? And both The company and your family are gonna suffer if They're not where your feet are, right? So if that helps anybody, it's just be where your feet are. And Then once you're done, It's like one of my favorite Jim Rohn quotes. It says, when you're at The beach, be at The beach. And when you're at The office, be at The office. Don't be at The office thinking about The beach and don't It's just a, it's a very competing intention. It's conflicting and Alright, so let's transition to The team. So what are some of The non-negotiables that are required to eiTher have a winning culture or a winning team? You mentioned you had 16 people when you started implementing The post-closing wealth management, client success manager role. How many employees do All right, so we went from one to 16 to 325. What are some non-negotiables for The organization? And actually to expand on that, how did The non-negotiables of The team evolve when you go from 16 to 300? What does that organizational success look like for team The power of no and organizational discipline are very important. You know, we have two, two pretty basic rules that if somebody wants to work at Neo, They have to believe what we believe in terms of how we can change The lives of The families that we serve and The communities that we serve. And They have to be willing to do all that and learn it and implement it and execute it. And just, There's a whole kind of- So Like They have to align with The vision, The mission, The values and The belief framework to Yeah. Like if someone just wants to do a lot of loans and make a lot of money, you know, I'm not saying They're wrong. I'm just saying They're not right for us. And you have to have a beginner's mindset. You have to be okay with change and innovation. You have to, you know, genuinely be accepting of The fact that we're going to be different tomorrow than we were today. And not just accepting of it, but desiring of it. So that takes a very unique type of person. And Then second, pretty basic, no assholes. Okay. We just vehemently protect our culture by bringing people into The organization that have a a partnership mindset as opposed to an employee-employer mindset, so They don't have an expectancy kind of programming in Their head. And everybody that comes into The organization from day one is considered a co-creator of The organization, meaning that we don't just want Their feedback, we expect it. And that, you know, empowering people with that and The understanding that They're going to make us better with Their perspective is really important. Like you don't just come work here as an employee. Everybody works with us. Nobody works for us. And that has served us really well. Nobody manages anyone. We just lead people. The words we use are important. You'll I love that. That's a powerful takeaway. That's just a one little line, but that's extremely transformational Yeah. I mean, The same way that you'll never hear me say The word loan officer, unless I'm talking about kind of what's wrong with The industry, Then I'll say officer. Um, but we are mortgage advisors. You know, we, we don't manage people. We don't have branch managers. We have branch leaders. All right, so this is fascinating to me. This is a whole conversation of itself, which maybe can segue into The future of The industry, but what was required of you and two sides. One, you have The creative element, which is just creating an ecosystem that you wanted to be a part of, but Then The oTher is having The discipline. I'm sure if you're competitive and $100 million producer walks in your office and he says, I don't want to follow any of this, but I just want to produce 100 million for Neo. How did you have The discipline to shut The front door and not let those people into The organization? I'll ask The question again, what was required to create this ideal ecosystem? And We created Neo because we realized, well, a lot of things. One is we realized There was no mortgage company or a mortgage brand that meant anything. Like I would challenge you or anyone listening to this to say like, what mortgage brand means something to The consumer oTher than this is where I get a mortgage. Wow. Right? And that is a byproduct of allowing anybody to work in your organization and having everybody doing it Their own way with Their own value proposition, with Their own technology, with Their own process. And so There's a reason that like, it's just The average consumer doesn't know that Moorish companies can even be anything more to Them than we've been for The last 50 years because we've never modeled that. Right? We said, look, we're gonna be The first company where The brand means something, right? Neo is Greek for new. And we're gonna be The new expectations that clients have for pre-transactional value. like during transaction but most importantly post transactional value i feel old neil's that company that helps you for thirty years. I need more company that like helps you set goals and plan and make sure that They're helping you prepare for what's next and helping you in all those areas like that's that company that does that. I My mind is blown only because I've communicated with legitimately probably 50 independent mortgage banks in The last 36 months. And The statement of what brand actually means something to The consumer Yeah. It's like, we can't all just offer The same stuff, right? Or we're going to drive each oTher into The ground. Right. And so if we want that to be true, Then The person who, you know, we help in Florida, needs to get The same experience and value and long-term commitment than The person we help in California or Minnesota or Texas. And How have you gotten new employees? And what's The word instead of loan officers, how do you refer to The mortgage advisors? How do you get mortgage advisors to adopt this? Especially if you have somebody that's been doing it anoTher way, 20 years, 10 years, 15 years, what does this indoctrination process look like to actually carry out The core values that First of all, we just tell our story loudly and as broadly as we can. And we don't have recruiters. I heard a stat The oTher day that only 11 companies grew more than a billion dollars in production from Q3 of 24 to Q3 of 25, only 11 companies. We have grown north of a billion without recruiters and without signing bonuses in six months. Wow. And that is a product of people being tired of So can I say this in anoTher way that culture is The foundational stepping stone in which you've used to accelerate that growth or is it more than culture? Am I think it's more than culture. It starts with vision and that vision creates culture. Okay. And what would be The second part to that? So if it's vision that creates The culture, what's The, is it The process? Is it The systems? Yeah. It's just organizational discipline, right? So nobody joins our organization without going through a very defined process, which is like. There's a lot of companies I can name right now that have recruiters that every day, They're just saying, I'll send you a contract right now. You'll have a signing bonus and blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever else They think will help sell you. They have no idea who you are. They don't have no idea like what you believe. They have no idea how you operate. They just know that you have a production number next to your name. And that production number means that They make money as The recruiter. And as long as The company can keep you, The company makes money off your production. We don't, no one reaches out to people here, right? Like that billion reached out to us. And it's because for The first time in a very long time, people like The really, like The financially literate, The community oriented, The well-intended mortgage professionals are realizing We need financial transparency. We need technology to create scalability and lower cost. We So an AI has to be a part of some of that conversation as you talk about The future? The entire tech stack, right? We need a community of people that surround us, that lift us up to collaborate with and help us be better. We don't have to go pay for it somewhere else. And we need team scalability, where The growth of my team is not on me as The originator, The company is going to take care of all that for me. And when you combine those five things togeTher, people start submitting to The fact that like, hey, here's how I've done it. And I'm happy, like, it's not working for most people, even high producing teams, if you really looked under The covers, it's a chaotic dance. Yep. Um, and They make it look nice and pretty on social media. Right. And They're never going to really show you The behind The scenes, but it's not sustainable. It's not, you know, you couldn't, you couldn't scale it. If I dumped anoTher 30 families next month on that team, it would break like in a, in a bad way. Right. So we tell people all The time, look, we don't have it figured out. Right. At no point is this thing fully baked, but if you want to come here, There's a process, right? There's technology in our technology is, Completely a hundred percent hours right it is a proprietary technology that nobody's ever used before so you can start you can even come in and keep doing it The same way. Right and we use so many different systems of processes that. You know, a lot of The reason why people are attracted to us is because of that. And Then we just tell Them, look, you have a different demographic, you have a different cultural makeup, you have different business partners, you have different clientele. So I want you to tell us how we make our system better, but we're all going to use The same system. And this is where The mortgage company or mortgage industry just fails time and time and time again. Like The reason why cost of fulfillment is so high It's not because of mortgage costs are so high. It's because of inefficiencies based upon variability. Every team does it differently. Like Like if you're outside of The mortgage world, The statement will not hit your soul The way it will, in which if you're a producer, a branch manager, a divisional leader, Their cost of fulfillment is as high as it is because not only because of inefficiency, but which I can think about it today, 14 branches, 14 CRMs, 14, you know, marketing job descriptions for every person on The team, you know, 14 different process flows, you know, all of Wow. So if I'm a leader and I'm listening to this, wheTher I'm an mortgage industry leader, real estate leader, and I want to develop organizational discipline, what skills are required of me as a leader to be able to create organizational discipline first of all, you have to set your kind of true North. Like what do you, what is a successful teammate? Look, so we have a entire document called The ideal and The O teammate and everything from leadership to, you know, business ownership mentality to, um, you know, partnership over employee. I mean, we could go on and on and on. Um, economic awareness, financial literacy, collaboration, involvement. And so as we're talking to people, we're asking These questions and, you know, somebody has to go through a whole day with us in order to come to our organization. And even still, sometimes we'll, we'll say it's not a good fit. Um, so we pass on, um, probably eight out of every 10 people that inquire. Um, and to your point, You know, it's hard to say no to The hundred million dollar person, but we didn't just flex that muscle yesterday. We learned The lesson early, right in 2021. And in 2022, we brought on a lot of, you know, a hundred million dollar teammates that again, when you pull back The curtain, it's a chaotic nightmare. And we inherited that chaotic nightmare. And we inherited lack of efficiency. We inherited expectancy. We inherited an employee mindset. We inherited people that just were conditioned over The last decade to two decades to be who They are. And it's not Their fault. It's just, They never really had great mentorship or leadership to help Them, but They're good marketers, right? They're good at managing chaos. They're good at getting Their information out. So They do a lot of loans. And, you know, a lot of Them weren't profitable, but it took 2022's rates to show up for that to be realized. And so we just, you know, we know we are not going to grow as fast as oThers, but- But a billion in six months, it seems to be working all right. Yeah, I think we might be disproving our own Theory There. But again, we're not looking to go out and just call You're willing for it to take longer to protect The quality and not bring it to The organization. Okay. All right. So I could legitimately ask you questions about mortgages for 12 hours straight, but we do have to honor an agenda and The time. So let me transition and just ask two personal questions as we wrap. So in The Theme of integration, $2 billion organization, extremely well-documented SOPs, Northstar, cultural mandate. Outside of lending, how important is it to you to be a good husband and a good It's The only thing. I tell people all The time, my wife, Brianne, and my daughters are just as responsible for any professional successes I have as I am. Because, I mean, I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this, but if you're having marital problems or relational problems, it's just like The most challenging energy to show up to your profession with. And it's hard to be your best self and it's hard to have your intentions come through in a highly energetic way. And so, you know, if you don't have a rock that you can depend on for so many things and just know that, you know, you're investing in that relationship as much as you are in your business, um, you're going to have that imbalance and something will break. One of The two will break. Same thing as a parent. I mean, if your kids kind of get off The happy path and start to have a problem, There's little, I mean, I would probably just go on hiatus until I solved that. I mean, what are we going to do? Just let Them be little maniacs and go to jail or worse? And while we keep focusing on our profession, right? So it's like, So I keep trying to tell people success is a very holistic venture. It's not one sided. And, um, you know, I struggle when I see, you know, people being lauded for Their success when They've had multiple divorces or, you know, estranged from Their kids or overweight or, you know, struggle with mental health or, you know, um, a lot of oTher afflictions that are way more important and way more impactful to somebody's longevity. Cause at The end of The day, you know, when we're staring down The, you know, staring down The path of like our last days, no one gives a shit how many loans you did. You're not going to say like, man, I wish I would have broken 200 million. Like you're going to say, I wish my kids were here. I wish my spouse was here. I wish I had better relationships. I would have lived a healthier life. And The mortgage industry has just been, I'm not even going to sugarcoat it. We've been really terrible at, you know, at giving credit to The wrong activities and The wrong results. But again, when we do that, we reinforce this negative loop of if I want to be, if I want people to see me or express that I'm good, or if I want to be felt like a, you know, if I want to be made feel good by oTher people, Then I need to hit my numbers. And it's like, no, you need to get all The oTher stuff right. And Then it's easy to hit your numbers. Wow. Well, you, you gave a perfect foundational stepping stone to The final question we asked on The Pillars of Purpose podcast, which is when you've onboarded your 20,000 employee at Neo Home Loans, and you've done your 2 billionth annual customer success review, you're closing Outlook for The last time. you're giving your last speech to The company, what does I promise you, if you were a financial planner, a wealth manager, and you told your family, your friends, your community that, you'd have a certain level of respect and admiration. Same thing if you told someone you were an attorney. Or an accountant, or fill in The blank. When people say They're in The mortgage industry, it is not anywhere near any of those things. But here's The issue. We actually can make a bigger impact in people's lives than all those people combined. because we see where They're struggling from a tax perspective. We see if They're, you know, have The right estate plans, wills, or trust. If They have liquidity, if They're managing Their finances in The right way, from all aspects of insurance, if They, Their cashflow is being managed well, um, we can help Them manage cashflow to a financial planner, but also grow Their real estate. So They have more portfolio balance. Like we can actually be more impactful than all those. We just need to step into that space and stop being, like so short-sighted and myopic that I just sell loans. I had a client in 2018, she calls me and says, Ryan, I have to sell my house. I was like, hey, Stephanie, we just helped you buy The house a year ago, don't sell it. First of all, it's going straight up in value and if you don't hold it for two years, you're going to have short-term capital gains. She says, my husband died and he got in a car accident and now we can't afford it. I was like, hey, look, I'm so sorry because I remember talking to her husband a year ago and I said, I want you to know that life insurance will step in. It'll pay off The mortgage. It'll help with you and The kids. Like you don't have to move. What do you think she told me? I don't have life insurance. No life insurance. And that I knew The second she said it, I knew that was my fault. And everybody tried to tell me, Brian, that's not your fault. You're a loan officer. You don't sell life insurance. It's not The realtor's fault. They sell real estate. They don't sell life insurance. Bullshit. Why? Because I'm a faTher. I'm a husband. I own a home. I have a mortgage. And guess what? I have life insurance. Why? Not because I just inherently knew I should get it. Someone in my life cared enough about me to tell me that I won't be a successful homeowner unless I do X, Y, and Z after I buy The home. But I didn't care. The realtor didn't care. Nobody else cared to like just ask anoTher question. We're one of The only countries in The world where you can get a mortgage without life insurance. Wow. Right? So we need to step into our opportunity to make an impact. And if, you know, I shut down my computer for The last time and The consumer still just expects, well, I guess this is where I get my debt to buy my home, Then I have not come Ryan, thank you for your time, broTher. This was incredibly insightful and a powerful message for anybody that considers Themselves just a loan officer to listen to and expand your mindset and your mentality on The impact you're able to make. Thank you so much for your time and for joining The Pillows of Purpose podcast, and I'm grateful to have you, broTher. Thanks, man. Happy to be here. Thank you so much for joining today's episode of The Pillars of Purpose podcast. If today's episode was entertaining, educational, or if it was a source of encouragement, please share this with a friend, a colleague, a family member, or anyone that would benefit from this message. Please subscribe and stay tuned for future episodes. We look forward to bringing you value every week. Hope you guys have a blessed day, blessed week, and let's go.