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Welcome. To the Pillars of Purpose podcast with your host, PJ Cursenzo. 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 one of my favorite leaders in the mortgage industry. Mr. Brant Hicks is the president of Clear Modern Mortgage, which is one of the largest divisions of American Pacific. He's one of the best thinkers that I've met in the mortgage industry. He is a husband, he is a believer, he's a dynamic thought leader in the mortgage space., and I'm honored to have you on the show. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. Yup, my pleasure. So I'm gonna go rapid fire 'cause it's the only way that I know how to go. Let's do it. And we're gonna dive right in. So what was one of your toughest seasons in the mortgage industry and how did you get through that season? Oh yeah, there's been a couple of really tough seasons, right? You know, 2007, 2008 was a really tough season. In those days, I was younger in my career. I started in 1997. 2006 was my best year of personal origination. It was like $180 million of personal origination. And right behind that, January of 2007, you start to see these massive discounts from these builders that we were doing business with, like $100,000-plus discounts. And we were doing firsts and seconds, and stated income loans, no ratio loans, and the second lien started to dry up. And really, before everybody knew what was going on in the market, we were feeling it because we were kind of on the front end of the fringier loans that were getting eviscerated. And so we went from the highest of high to the lowest of low. And then next thing you know, the company I was partnered with went out of business. And that was July of '07. Then next thing you know, you start seeing all these other companies start to fold, right? You're looking around, I'm a 30-something-year-old guy. Again, just come off my best year ever. I just built my dream house. And then I started feeling like, "Holy shit, what is going

on here?". [Speaker: 2:26

Trey_Lockerbie] How much of that time was panic, fear, uncertainty? And when did you start to go into strategy mode? And was there any strategy mode because of how much turmoil was going on in the market?

[Speaker: 2:41

Scott_Roche] Well, the first 6 months to a year, it was just panic and fear and not knowing. There's a saying in investing in something, right? And so if you've got sophisticated investors or someone's going to try to buy a company, you don't buy into a falling knife because you get cut, right? So when something is dropping, you don't try to catch the knife. And we didn't know where the knife was going to drop, right? How far was it going to drop? And I didn't have any experience with this. We were prepared for 20%, 30% pullbacks, but not the entire business imploding and subprime and all day and all of this stuff imploding and even Countrywide, every big company, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, all these acquisitions and too big to fail started coming in. So the macro part of it was absolutely wild and it took me a little while to figure out and to find the silver lining. And through that though, it was probably a year in, that we started to try to find, okay, where is the real pivot? Where's the opportunity? Because there's always a silver lining. And I'm a believer that everything in life is a teacher or a tormentor. It just depends on which you prefer to view it from. Who first taught you that framework? Because that's one of my favorite things that I ever heard from you. That's actually part of my daily affirmation. Really good friend of mine, Trey White. He was part of the group that took Realtor.com public, and he was someone that I knew early on and was a mentor. And so it was like, hey, through that period of time, that's something that he taught me, like, hey, everything in life's a teacher or tormentor. I don't like to be torn. I'm an optimist. And so what's the lessons? And as a 33-year-old man at the time, I started thinking about, okay, what are the lessons here? They're pretty profound. How blessed am I going to be, right? To have experienced these things that most people don't experience in their life. And here I am, 31 or 32 years old, and now I'm experiencing things that I'm going to be able to apply to the rest of my life. Like, you know, I believe that you buy the lessons and you hang them up in your closet. We own a lot of lessons personally, right? And so each time I buy a lesson, I'm like, okay, there's pride of ownership there. Let me hang that thing up. Now I don't buy that son of a bitch again. I own that one. I'll keep on adding to my closet of new t-shirts. Never buy the same t-shirt twice. Yeah, it's like not get bit by the same dog. So it's like just buy the lesson, be proud of it, find the thing that you can take out of it, and then apply it over and over and over. And so that was really the silver lining. It's like, okay, what have I learned? What have we experienced? And this will also happen again. We'll go through another time. Where the market is tumultuous like this and it turns. Well, next time we'll start to be able to read the tea leaves. Like, okay, I've seen the video, I know how this movie ends, so let's prep for the next time this thing happens. And we were able to find a really soft landing and take advantage of the market. As other people were starting to fail, we found out how to aggregate them because we had already gone through our pain and we were a year, year and a half further ahead than other people. And so that was a great thing for us. And then Really, it was the preparedness for'22, '23, '24. Having been through such a cataclysmic. Event. I was definitely ready for '22 when it came around. If there's one thing that's impacted your mentality today, and maybe it's preparation and anticipation, but what's one lesson that you think you most frequently reflect on from the crash going through that? So that's one, One question, what's your biggest takeaway from going through that and what still impacts you. Today? Don't drink the Kool-Aid. What goes up must come down. And don't believe you've got it all figured out because I don't. I still don't. And as much as we may prepare, you just never know. There's this level of uncertainty. That you can't prepare for. And so know that the show's ultimately going to end or it's going to change, it's going to continue to evolve, and you just have to be prepared for it and just know that just because things are great now doesn't mean that that season 2 won't change. I mean, you started off seasons and I do, I'm a big believer in seasons and that's the analogy we use with our team. It's like, okay, Right now, we are now in a springtime, but for multiple years it was with my group, it's like we're in a harsh winter and we didn't think it was going to get as frigid as it did. We were prepared for winter. We may know it was going to be a little prolonged, but it's been a 3-year winter and now we're in a springtime where things are becoming more bountiful and we've been planning and planning and planning and planning and planning for years. And you're starting to see those things start to sprout and know that, okay, we're going to get into a harvest time again. Is that 3 months? Is that 6 months? Is that 9 months? But we're going to keep on planting. And yes, we're seeing them start to bud and it's exciting to start to see that new growth and new opportunity. I love springtime, right? I mean, for me, I walk around my backyard constantly because I love seeing Life. Flowers blossom in the sunshine and a blue sky. Absolutely. Where do you think— So I want to make sure I don't skip this question. So real quick, just to capture your journey, $180 million funded in 2006, before I transition to the next question on seasons, where does that translate in today's loan volume? If you were doing the same amount of units that you did in 2006, what would that be in volume in 2026? Yeah. I mean, In the mid-2000s, we had many years of— that was 760 units. So you would've been a top 10 originator in the country if you did. That same volume again. Yeah, I was number 13 that year in units. Wow. In the United States. Yeah, I just wasn't in dollar volume. I was probably top 30 maybe in dollar volume. Wow. I don't remember the number, but I had years of 1,200, 1,300 units, 1,400 units. But back then our loan sizes were $140,000.

Now our average loan size is— Trey. Lockerbie: 8:58

So you've been able to compete at the highest level of originating to see what's required to close

that amount of volume in a calendar year. Robert Levy: Yeah. Trey Lockerbie: 9:08

I mean, you compete at the highest level. So this is a great question, whether I'm a new loan officer, I'm a $50 million producer, I'm a$100 million producer, I like to relate mortgage lending to sports or really any sales. It's kind of like a sports environment, right? Because you're competing. So there's certain things that are required with your environment, with your mentality, with your non-negotiables. If somebody was going to come join Clear Modern Mortgage today and they said, "I want to learn everything I can from Mr. Brent Hicks to go do 1,000 units," what do you think are some non-negotiables and essentials they have to have either on their team and their mindset in order to

climb the ranks. To get to that level? Brent Burchard: 9:42

Yeah. Look, I think you've just got to be set in the process. There's a process. You can't manage people, you can manage systems. And so, Systematize everything that you do. Be patient, right? Because there aren't any shortcuts, there's no silver bullets. It takes time and maturation. It takes water, it takes fertilization, right? It takes time to build a business. But, you know, be clear and be clear with your team and have your hell yeses and your hell nos and your non-negotiables. I'm a big believer in not walking on eggshells. Having open, real dialogue with our team, whatever that is. And I think you got to hold yourself to the same standard or higher than you hold your team. So I think it's really important for it's not do as I say, not as I do. We have to be obsessive, man. If you want to succeed in anything, be obsessive. When we're hiring people, it's like, I want people that have OCD. I think somebody that has a high enough dose of OCD is really good because they can be obsessive and it's like sweat the small things. You want to, you have to be able to sweat all the small details and be very particular in how you want each one of those things executed, and document those things, and then talk about those things, and then systematize them to make sure those things are done. But I can't be in the business trying to teach my team to do something and I'm the worst abuser of it. So if we've got our principles, then I have to be the one that's the most steadfast in those principles. And it's like, okay, I'm doing it. I'm going to hold you accountable to these things. However, you hold me accountable. It has to go both ways. How have you handled the business? Call me out on it if I'm not doing it. If it's conversation logs or whatever it is, if you see that I didn't do it, please, in front of everybody, open and real conversation. We all are accountable to one another. So good. We're all interconnected and combined, and our success is a combined success. So yeah, I think that's important. But I would say— Have you met resistance with that system of accountability and trying to manage systems? What's been your operating framework of how you deal with employees that may not want to be held accountable or may say, "Hey, you're being too stern," or, "Your standards are too high"? How have you navigated. That over the years? Look, I haven't found a whole lot of resistance because I walk the walk, right? It's like doing the things that I'm asking them to do, then it's kind of hard for someone to throw stones back. Um, and, and if it's, if it's not a fit, it's not a fit, right? I don't want to walk on eggshells. And so, yep, I don't think we're being jerks, we're just being specific, like being myopic about the things. But it's about teaching those things. It's not just here, we have to do this every time. It's teaching the people the principles, right? And so when I would hire assistants, I would have them sit in my office for 6 months for almost a year because I wanted to overhear every one of their conversations. But conversely, I want them to overhear mine. And I want to go through right then and there. If I hear someone saying something that I don't necessarily agree on and I wanted to course correct it, then you course correct right then and there. But it's not like, don't do this, don't do that. It's like, I would've framed this differently. And the reason I would do this a bit differently or frame this is because I'm going to start all the way back here at the end and tell you what each one of these little things in the navigation of the course on getting there, how much further away you would be or how that could have set you off course completely. So here's where we're going, here's the end result, and here's the way that I've learned how to do it and why. And look, it needs to be a meritocracy as well. And so we can't be just stuck in our ideas and that this is the only way of doing things. If you have a meritocracy and a true meritocracy where anyone can bring forth an idea. It doesn't matter their title or their tenure. Yeah, it's like, okay, the best idea survives. And I think there's a meritocracy. But do you enforce that today? Would you say your group is a meritocracy today? We are. Look, there still has to be someone to make a decision. So you can't just have meritocracy where no one's willing to make a decision. You have to have decisions. But yeah, you want to encourage ideas to come from anybody. And to have people be bold in their beliefs and challenges. Let's talk them out and let the best idea win. And I hate when we get stuck in an environment too where it's like, do as I've always done, give up what I've always gotten. Or it's like, this is the way that we've always done it. Well, why? I don't know. So we always do it. Well, all right. So walk me through that. That's the part that I can't stand. Yeah. And I love that about you, bro. I love the way you process information and some of the things that— I would say maybe regurgitate because you've learned them elsewhere, right? But I just like the word bank you pull from. So walk me through your journey as an entrepreneur of personal development, because I hear a lot of personal development nuggets come out. Was it you're 20 years old and you're like, "I'm just going to start reading books." Was there a kairos moment that made you lean closer into coaching or personal development? Just walk me

through the personal development. Journey of Brent Hicks. Brent Burchard: 14:53

Yeah, I was in my early 20s. Stacy and I got married in 2000. So I've been married 25 going on 26 years now. Happy 25-year anniversary. Yeah. Thanks. Also, by the way, if anybody hasn't met Brent and Stacy, they're two of the best dressed attendees at any event that you will be at. She dresses me well. If you want to be impressed and level up your closet, go hang out with Brent and Stacy. But go ahead. And we got married and we had a a dream to be the first millionaires in our business. I'm a college dropout. Wow. And so I think early on in life, chip on my shoulder or the thing that I was uneasy about was the fact that I'm a college dropout. And I said something— Middle-class upbringing, pretty normal childhood? Middle, very normal. Very normal. My parents are amazing. Kind of beaver cleaver. Both my parents worked, but they were consistent, solid, just good, humble Christian folks, man. They're just great. So I was very fortunate there. I wasn't a good student. I wasn't called with school. I was kind of a dreamer and math I always knew very well. I was always kind of entrepreneurial. My mom was an entrepreneurial spirit. I learned that early on from her. And I went to college, dropped out, moved to Dallas when I was 19 and didn't know what I was going to do. And I took my $300 cashier's check because back then $300 was a lot of money and I didn't want to carry it on cash. So cashier's check, that shows how old I am. Moved to Dallas, ran out of gas on the way there. And so my story— And never looked back. Yeah. And then I was working 3 jobs, bartending and selling copiers, and that's what I was doing when I got in the mortgage business. When was the first time you got away from mortgages? I was afraid to be a failure. 1997 was I got in, and I think that was it. It's like in the back of my head, the thing I was afraid of is you're going to be broken, a failure, right? You're not good enough. And as we started getting some success, I started to invest and putting my money into mutual funds. 1999, the market crashed. I lost 50% of my net worth. Stacy and I got married. We had this dream to become the first millionaires. And someone gave me a book, The Richest Man in Babylon. That was really the first book that I read outside of school. And that principle was invest in yourself, invest in others, pay yourself first, even before you would tithe, invest in yourself, pay yourself first, invest in others. And at the time, we were investing in the stock market. I didn't have control over that. I didn't know what was going to happen. Tech market had blown up. And so we used that principle. It's like, okay, if I'm investing $3,000 a month into mutual funds or whatever it was, let me apply that back in my business, invest in ourselves, invest in others. Let me hire my first assistant. Let me be the fiduciary of that money. And so I hired a friend of mine, was my first assistant. And then we started just putting that money every month, whatever more money we made. If we were making $15,000 a month and before we were making $12,000, then the extra $3,000 would go on. We kept our livelihood the same. Is that a framework that you guys have followed from a wealth management and stewardship perspective? Has it been percentages? Has it been instinct? What's the framework? I mean, always a percentage. I've always paid myself first. I've always invested off the top, always allow it to compound. And then a lot of it's instinctual as well. But I do believe you got to have a system, you got to have a process, and you do, you have to invest. And to your point, you have to be a fiduciary or steward of your finance. So that's what started to grow our business. Where do you think people go wrong today managing their finances? So you got loan officers, you got leaders, and you probably have a lot. Of people that you know in the business world. Level up our lifestyle to our income too early or we start to get indebted based off of things that we want, we don't build proper foundation, right? A financial— like the instant gratification is a reward that is in society today, right? I think we have to stay humble and we've got to build the right foundation and the right investment strategy and you've got to feed that first. And then when that starts to grow and it starts to grow significantly, then you reward yourself. But it should be earn, save, invest, and then reward. Reward shouldn't be number 1 or number 2. That's the last thing. That's the byproduct of you being a good steward and you saving, you earning, saving, investing. Then you get the reward. It's like these goals. If I get to X, then I will do Y. And you got something to drive for and you got something to talk about with your spouse. You get something that collectively you both have worked on your financial plan annually and here's what our annual goal is and here's what the tree's going to be. And then you start to blow through those things because you get compounding effect. But if people don't get the compounding effect because they never watered it, they never nurtured it, then it never really starts to grow and it never starts to blossom. So yeah, pay yourself first. Be rigid about that. Be myopic. And you got to be long in your thought process. It's not instant gratification, but compounding over years and years and years starts to become uncontrollable. And then next thing you know, it's like, "Oh, wow. I can't believe that we're at the place that we're at." Well, it wasn't one thing. It wasn't one decision. It's just like people having a liquidity event when they built a company for 20 years and it was the 20 years' worth of hard work that got them to that place. It wasn't just that liquidity event that happened. It was the 20 years in the making. And We may not own a business that creates liquidity event, but we can have that time and

that maturation in creating this cash vehicle. [Speaker: 21:01

Elliot_Bisnow] That's extraordinary income. All right. So every 60 seconds you talk, I have an organic question I want to ask. So I just have to pick where I'm going to stop and ask a question. So you just mentioned the process, right? You had a good framework, which is for maybe retail businesses or non-mortgage branch vehicle, because our business is a very ordinary income-driven vehicle, but I want to lean into the process, right? Because you said it's It's never just the liquidity event. It's 20 years of the process that led you to that big win. Let's go a step deeper into the process of what it takes to manage a sales team at a high level, do big volume, because we have 400 DBAs, but 400 DBAs don't do $50 to $60 million a month. So what would you say are some non-negotiables in 2026? If you're a mortgage leader, you're a sales manager, you're a top-producing loan officer, it could be industry-related or just personal, what are some non-negotiables you think are required to win and compete. At a high level? Look, I think everybody's got to be willing to be a student. They've got to be willing to learn. Right? Coachable, teachable, humble. You know, you want to talk about Christianity and religion. Let me just tell you my life principle, which is based out of a principle that I learned early on. Yeah, I went to a Catholic school, grew up Catholic. I converted there— not converted, but just really gravitated towards Christianity. I was 20, I think I was 19 or 20 years old at the time. My roommate in Dallas, right? I moved to Dallas, met some friends and had this great roommate. We were out at this camp, this family's ranch, and, you know, campfire, whatever, read the Bible. And Reading Proverbs. That night I went to bed and I prayed as hard as I prayed for anything, for God to give me wisdom. In the middle of the night, you know, I had this thought that kept on rolling over and over in my mind, right? I couldn't sleep really because I couldn't get this thought out. And there's a French word called idée fixe, and it means a thought that occupies the mind. I'm sure you've had it as well, right? You got this centralized thought in your mind and you just can't really sleep because you can't stop thinking about this thing. And it was, "The meek shall inherit the earth. The meek shall inherit the earth. The meek shall inherit the earth." And it was out in the middle of nowhere, ranch, very quiet. The next morning we're having coffee and I asked my friend, "What does meek mean?" I didn't know what meek meant. And he said, "I think a lot of times people think meek means timid." But I think meek means humble, teachable. And it took me probably a couple of days or so to process as I really started thinking about, okay, what is this? I went to bed praying for wisdom as hard as I prayed for anything, having Eric there to help me understand the meaning of meek. Was also part of that, the connecting of the dots. And really what I've realized is I asked God for wisdom and he planted in my heart, which was the meek, those that are humble enough to be teachable can do anything. The meek shall inherit the earth. And so that became my life mission, something I remind myself of daily. If I'm humble enough to be teachable. Then what can we not do? Wow. That's incredible. So that's the principle of entrepreneurship. Or just life that— What has kept you humble as you've had a lot of worldly success? Is it that guiding faith principle, the concept of fearing God? Is it a tough moment you've had, rock bottom? What keeps you teachable? Because I think a lot of people, when they're starting out, I'm going to be humble. I'm going to be teachable. I need to learn. I need to grow. Well, as soon as they have their first 7-figure year, as soon as they buy the house, the lukewarmness and the temperature just starts to drift where they no longer become teachable. So what's kept you grounded over 20 years, 25 years to still be willing. To learn and grow? Well, I bought a lot more t-shirts in my years and had some very big teacher not tormentor moments that have hit, that have just rocked me where it's like, okay, I got it. I got the message. I got the lesson. This is hard, but yes, okay, I'll learn how to apply this. And yes, I know what things cost. And so you think— I can't say at times that I didn't lose that at an early age, and then it brought me back down and kept me humble. And then after you buy enough lessons, it's like, okay, I have a sense. Of— So would you say the teacher, because if I think about your life philosophy and I kind of build these things together, you have the concept of, I don't want to buy the lesson twice. I only want to put it in my closet once. I'm going to take every setback or moment of adversity through the lens of being a teacher and not a tormentor. And that's going to reinforce my north star of the meek shall inherit the earth. Is that a proper sequence? Because that's powerful. I think that's a very Proper Secrets. Yes. Okay. All right. I will write the foreword to your bestselling novel on the philosophy of— I. Think you'd have to write my novel for me too, man. I am a horrific writer. All right. Well, as ChatGPT continues to develop, it'll probably be writing novels for all of us. All right. So personal question, but I'm just curious. I know that you've had a relationship with Tim Braheem and you've done some work with The Loan Atlas. What are some of the biggest takeaways or singular biggest takeaway you've had from the exposure to that coaching group, and how it may have impacted how you. Operate and run your business? I mean, look, the exposure to Tim himself, he's a wonderful human being, a wonderful teacher, very, very bright and very humble. Like, you know, it's what I loved about his teaching was always just business, right? It's life and life principles. And I've gotten more out of the life aspect of the coaching than I did off the business components as well, right? It's like usually coaching is either one direction or the other, and this was always very well-rounded. And what I've always enjoyed too is Tim is the same type of person who's always learning and searching and seeking, and also a person that has a lot of humility that's willing to, look, say I, me, my— these were my flaws. I did this, right? It's not you. It's taking ownership. It's always me. It's an ownership mentality. And I love that about Tim. And then you expose yourself with other people that are like-minded, right? To expose yourself to 20, 30, 40 other people that are top performers in our industry that go through a similar process, right? So with his core coaching, That's a week-long process and then a year worth of intense coaching and everybody learning to have a container. When you get together, there's a container where things stay in that container. It's a safe place that people can be safe that doesn't get talked outside of the container. That's where people can let their guard down. And then you have people who are speaking the same language because we've all gone through the same process and you create this container. Then you really create a mastermind group where you feel like you can openly share and take back, and then you build friendships, brotherhoods, sisterhoods with people that can become lifelong friends and have become lifelong friends. And so there's so much there, and it's helped that in many times as I'm seeking for something, then I may send a text message to some of the people in the group or an email or a phone call, I throw something in a chat and then people are chiming in, or you find someone that has gone through this or may have specific knowledge and that, okay, let me lean on this person and ask them. And then I can start to borrow some of the t-shirts that they've bought and like, okay, that's cool. Borrow this t-shirt, tell me how you wore it. What did you learn from it? Because again, I'm going to go buy more t-shirts. But if I don't have to buy that t-shirt and this t-shirt, not because I own them, but because somebody else owns them— That's powerful. I get to make different mistakes that I get to learn from, or we. Get to learn from collectively. So let's speak to the loan officer in 2026 that's going to listen to this podcast and wants to grow their business. First, I want to set with a framework, which I always love asking industry leaders this question. What should a full-time loan officer be closing in 2026? If I'm working 40 hours a week and I'm committed to my craft, what would you consider a minimum level of. Production for a full-time loan officer? Yeah, I think the minimum you should be doing $12 million a year. A million a month. A million a month. I think that anybody that is, I think, truly working the business and can say they're putting in their full 40 hours, if they spend time out there trying different things, applying whatever it is that they learn back into the business, They can close $1 million a month, no problem. So you think any equipped loan officer in 2026 that puts in 40 hours a week is capable of funding $1 million a month? Yeah. And I'm talking about putting 40 hours of actual work in. That doesn't mean you plug in and you play around on the internet while you're sitting at your desk. That's not 40 hours of work. You may be plugged in for 40 hours, but I'm talking about 40 hours of work. If you don't have something to do, then you're finding something positive to do, something that you're learning from, something you're growing from. You're actually prospecting, you're picking up the phone and getting over call reluctance, and you're asking for the business. You're contacting your past clients, right? You're doing annual reviews. So it's applying the things that you can learn from other people. And if you do that, right, it's just swiping and adapting things that work. Tony Robbins says something that I love, that's my favorite quote from him, which is, "Find someone that has what you want, do exactly as they do, and you'll get the same result. But if you modify it, you're going to get a modified result. Oftentimes I have modified things that I learned, and so my result wasn't the same. But if I follow what it is that that person that I, I want to emulate is doing, I do it exactly as they do, then I should get the exact same result. So, all right, so you mentioned a couple things that are fruitful, I want to just capture it and give a tactic. So first, I need to ask myself, am I actually working or am I just available for 40 hours a week? That's a question I should be asking myself. If I'm a loan officer and I'm not doing $1 million a month, $12 million a year, how many hours am I actually working? Let's say I have a come-to-Jesus moment listening to this podcast and I say, "All right, I'm going to work 40 hours a week." What are 2 to 3 things that you would consider the most fruitful things that I can be doing to fill up that time? And then I have another question for. You about how you felt. I would say, first of all, let's figure out what you're actually doing. So let's log it in. So, so, you know, let's see. Oh, shit. The book is evading me right now and I've read it so many times. Take, take and write down everything you do in a day. Do it for 3 or 4 days. Look at every single thing. Returned an email, called a client. Talked to my wife, did this, went to the fax machine, whatever it is you do, boom, boom, boom, pages and pages and pages every single day of everything that you do. And then at the end of every day, you go in and you put an E for entrepreneur, T for technician. M for manager, E-Myth Revisited. E-Myth Revisited, yes. You're the one that recommended it and. That book was incredible. And so by doing that for a couple of days, then you can categorize what it is that you're doing and how much time you're spending on each category and what you actually are doing in a day. It's going to shock you. And you're going to be doing a lot of things that you never thought you really spent that much time on. And then you start to realize, okay, is this the highest and greatest use of my time? Am I just filling up my day with technician stuff, filling up my day with a bunch of just busywork stuff that means nothing, or am I spending my time doing money-making activity? So what am I doing to rainmake? What am I doing to drive in business? And then over time, I recognize that these things need to be done. I'm maybe the only person on the team, but I'm going to learn, okay, how do I start to grow my business and focus on things that generate revenue and rainmake? And then as I start to rainmake, how do I invest back into the business to be able to take these tasks off my plate where I can spend more of my time in doing other things? So step one is a registry of actually even knowing what are you doing on a daily basis? Because if you never identify and do the time audit, you'll never be able to

shift the activities. To get the results you want. [Speaker: 34:12

TIM_FERRISS] And then I think you have to invest in your business, right? I think as loan originators, if I look back my career, early on we were all 1099 employees and then we became W-2 employees and then we became W-2 employees with a set and specific amount of basis points per deal. I think we have gone more into an employee mindset. We're all entrepreneurs. We're sales. We get paid. We eat what we kill. And we have to remember that, which means we have to— I have to invest in my business. I also have to look at investment through a different lens, and I can't look at it through the expense lens. This is an expense when I go do marketing, because expense, when I think about it, has pain associated to it. Investment has an ROI attached to it. Wow, that's good. If I changed my Thinking on what this is, and it's really an investment, it's not an expense, then I don't have the pain associated. I have the reward that I'm trying to get, and I'm going to be a good steward of my money. So I think you have to invest in your business, um, no matter what it is. If it's $500 a month to start off, you grow your business, then you compound it and compound it and compound it. Your business can really grow, and you got to water it. Um, so you got to get out there, you got to make the phone calls, you've got to ask for the business, as uncomfortable as it possibly can be. You know, become— make sure that everyone that you come in contact with becomes a disciple. Discipleship is the highest level of experience that you can possibly have. A raving fan is an acceptable one, but the level above that is discipleship. So everyone we come in contact with, we should be intentional about what that experience is. And ultimately, you want to have an experience that sets a reticular activator to go off where they feel the— you do things for people where you've made them feel amazing and you want reciprocity. He said, I give and give and give and give to the place that people want to reciprocate that, and I can create disciples. And so that is the particular activator, right? Pregnant women notice other pregnant women. You're going to see other people with an Apple Watch. I notice Apple Watches, right? That thing goes off. And so we want— I want when someone hears the word mortgage, finance, real estate, that their reticular activator goes off. They give us, you know, they refer us in a way that resonates. And those accolades, because they want to repay the act of kindness, they're not fumbling around looking for your card and your phone number. Like, you need to call this person. They were amazing. My family uses them. Wow. And they just rave about you. When somebody does that, when they call you, like, their belief is here. I don't have to sell them on, using my team, they're already sold. And that's the type of experience we want. And that's reciprocity.

[Speaker: 37:04

TREY_LOCKERBIE] I love that. That is a next level. So if you're really any entrepreneur and you want to reflect on the quality of your referrals and how well does your ecosystem send you business, are you building fans or are you building disciples that every time they hear of your industry that they're sending you business? That's incredible. Two more questions for you as we work our way through this. As we're recording this heading into the new year, this is going to drop in the new year, but I'm curious, what is your goal setting process? So when Brent Hicks sits down, are you a quarterly, annually, monthly? How do you approach and process targets and goals and what keeps you plugged into the pursuit

of those targets as. The year goes on? Brent Burchard: 37:46

Yeah. I mean, look, it starts off with a to-do list every single day. The day before, create a to-do list and an action item. And then update it in the morning time, know exactly what I'm focusing on. And so I keep this kind of perpetual to-do or action item list that continues to happen every single day. So again, I can stay on task and look at my calendar. When I don't have an appointment, I go back to that list of things that I want to action upon and to get things crossed off my list. And then absolutely, we've always got a monthly plan, a quarterly plan, and then every year If it's November, December, even this time, you're spending time building your annual plan, both business and personal. So let's say you set a number, right? Hey, I want to fund blank for Clear Modern Mortgage, right? We want our division to do blank. Is that something that you're thinking about once heading into the new year? Is that something that every month you're kind of tracking your progress? Are you on target? Yeah, we're tracking our progress. We built our business plan in November. For 2026, right? I think it's important that you get it done in advance. And so you're not fumbling around in January trying to figure out where you want to go. You're already in the car of 2026. Like, know the direction you want to go. If you're driving to California, you have a thing mapped out. So try to get that done earlier. And then absolutely, you have to be able to break it down into milestones and checkpoints, right? If I'm driving from Texas to California. Where am I going to stop? Where am I going to stop for gas? Where am I going to stop to sleep? And directionally, I know, okay, I was expecting to drive 625 miles today and I only drove 500. I got 125 miles to make up. Or vice versa, if we're ahead of goal, then I'm going to change my goal, right? Because it may be a banner year and you may start to have things really come together. So I don't want to skate. If we're ahead of our goal, let me readjust my goal. Maybe I need to readjust my dream because we're hitting an inflection point and we want to capitalize on that. Because in life, look, it's hard to get to inflection points and they don't happen that often. Once you've had enough of them happen, then you can start to realize we are doing something really special. And when you have that magic going, Capitalize on it, man. Try to do as much as you possibly can because what I've found is those things come around only a couple of times. That's powerful. You mentioned one thing that I just— True momentum. True momentum. You mentioned one thing that I want to capture before I ask a final question. You mentioned goal setting and really just goal setting and alignment a couple of times with your wife. Are you intentional about setting goals together and things you want to accomplish together? And what's that process look like? Do you keep the household and the business separate, or are you aligned on what you're trying to accomplish at work. When

you're processing decisions with her? [Speaker: 40:42

TIM_FERRISS] Yeah, I think it's important. I think it's important to be aligned top to bottom and in your household. There's no more important place to be aligned. And there are times that there may be a lot of sacrifice. If I'm personally sacrificing, my wife doesn't understand what we're sacrificing for, and not on board, then we're going completely different directions. And so I think it's really important for us to be able to divide and conquer and to be able to drive in the same direction so we're not pulling each other like a rubber band going in different directions. We've got to do our annual plan and figure out what it is in life that we really want, what's the direction that we want to be going. And what our dream is, right? And that dream is constantly evolving. Stacy and I, we generally manifest the same goals. And for

us, it's been 11:11. I use 11: 41:40

11.

It's on my wrist. Our logo has got 11: 41:44

11 embedded in that people don't even know. We've got a house and the frame of the

house is 11: 41:52

11 everywhere. I see it 2 times every day.

AM and PM, every time I see 11: 41:55

11, it's manifestation of those things. And so Stacy and I are generally aligned in those things. And when we see it, we text it to each other all the time. And it's that thinking of those things that we

want to accomplish constantly that. Help us achieve those things. [Speaker: 42:10

TREY_LOCKERBIE] That's awesome. All right. So when it's all said and done, you funded your 10 billionth loan and we got our 2,000th loan officer putting on the Clear Modern Mortgage logo and you're closing Outlook for the last time, you've done your last time audit, your last EMT evaluation, there's no more to-do list in the marketplace. What does Mr. Brent Hicks want. To be known for? Wow. That's a hard one. I want to be known as a kind and caring individual that has helped people know my heart and my spirit. I want to be known— I'm not a dad, but I'm a damn good uncle. Let's go. For the time that I've spent helping raise my niece and my nephews. Yeah, it's not about how many loans we've funded, it's just about the person that we are. I love that, bro. Well, bro, thank you so much for your time. This was awesome. Tonne of golden nuggets. If you're a brand new loan officer, a seasoned loan officer, a divisional leader, lot of really good tactical takeaways. Brent, appreciate you being on today and hope you guys have a blast the. Rest of the year. Yeah, you too, brother. Appreciate you having me, bro. 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!