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Welcome to the High Level People Podcast with your host PJ Cursunzo. This is the show where every week we go inside the minds of modern market leaders. These are world-class entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and ministry leaders who are making a generational impact on the world today. The question is, if you're going to compete, why not compete at the highest level possible? And that's what this show is designed for, to give you a playbook for your life so that you can continue to climb levels week after week. This is the High Level People Podcast, and welcome to today's episode. Welcome to the High Level People Podcast. Today I have somebody that I look up to, an incredible influence, producer, and leader in our industry. I have JJ Mazo, who's overseen billions of dollars in fundings and production, built one of the top performing teams in the country, and has an incredible story that I'm excited to dive into. JJ, welcome to the show. Oh, thanks for having me, brother. I appreciate you. Yeah, my absolute pleasure. All right, so rapid fire. We're gonna dive right in 100 miles an hour. Let's do it. Walk me through the concept of limiting beliefs, right? Because you've been at a lot of different stages in your career. What does it look like to step into new identities as you've kind of grown with success and results? And what does that journey look like from where you were to where you are today and how you view yourself when it comes to what limiting beliefs you allow in your world and how you kind of broke through some of those? Yeah, that's a great question, man. So we're getting deep. So I would— Yeah, we're going deep end headfirst, the only way we swim. Yeah, man. Limiting beliefs just are basically seeds planted to us either by our environment or the people that were closest to us throughout our part of our lives. And that is it, man. And it is not by choice, you know, by choice. You know, I filled out this book. What is it? Here it is. Dad, I Want to Hear Your Story. Someone gave me this Dad, I Want to Hear Your Story book. And it's like, it asks you all these different questions and you fill all these questions out and said, you know, what do you miss most about your childhood? And I think I wrote without even hesitation, it was, you know, I miss innocence, I miss not having the internet, I miss not having a cell phone, I miss being creative, I miss playing in the streets until the streetlights came on. All of that has to do with creativity and happiness and being with those that you love, right? And then somewhere between that and birth and where you end up and whether you're 20, 30, 40, 50, 102, it doesn't matter. There's all these things that are planted at you. And it could be someone close to you, like, listen, my mother did the best that she could. Everyone does the best that she could, but my mother's a professional passive-aggressive and encourager was not her middle name because she wasn't encouraged. And pain breeds pain. And that's really just how we get these limiting beliefs that I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy. Well, when you hear these type of seeds being planted on you by people that you know, trust, care, and love, and shoot, it doesn't even need to be planted by people you don't know or care about and love. It could be by anyone and create certain amount of shame within you. But when that happens, especially from people that we love, a lot of times we're going to tuck that deep. We don't want to think about it, don't want to talk about it, or didn't even notice it. But our brain was there the whole time, man, whether or not you think about something when you were 4 or 5 years old, it's still there. It didn't go anywhere. You don't chop that part of your brain out. This is a highly, highly capable computer and it keeps everything until you wipe the hard drive. And that happens when you're with Christ. So at the end of the day, bro, it is, those are the limiting beliefs. I think we all have them. And then you gotta ask though, this is the question, you know, is it true? I'm not good enough. Is it true? I mean, well, okay. Yeah, it is true. All right, well, why is it true? And then you start asking the why is it true? Well, because they said it's true. Okay, but they said it's true, what's the reason and what proof do they have that it is true? And so it just comes back to truth. And sometimes we just, you're gonna feed, you feed the dog and whatever dog you feed is the one that's gonna be there. And you can feed the wolf and the crazy dog, the timid dog or the happy and joyful dog, doesn't matter which one, but— The polite poodle, whatever's in the hound, you're gonna feed it. Yeah, man, so. I love that response, bro. That's so good. Scrape the hard drive, identify the seeds that have been planted by either your environment or the people close to you. That is so accurate and so tactical. So take me one step further, right? Let's say I'm somebody listening to this and I'm— and at least from what I've seen, you could probably relate to this in any sales organization. I see that as really the North Star that's killing a lot of momentum is this just the belief framework for what people think is possible. So I'm listening to this. I've had a lot of seeds planted in my garden. I've got a lot of viruses downloaded on my hardware. My first step that you gave me is ask, is it true? Go a little bit deeper on how we fight this war, whether it's some things that we can do, affirmations, prayer, mentors. Like, I would assume just from a brief understanding of your story, you've had to fight some limiting beliefs in your life, right? So what is— yeah, what does that fight look like? Well, I think the first off, you have to, you have to see, do these limiting beliefs serve you? Unfortunately, man, they serve— they may serve you in one area, not another. Meaning, you know, some of us, we call it the chip on our shoulder. And so those limiting beliefs served a really good chip on my shoulder and helped me create a lot of income. But because I was only using— instead of addressing it, I was using it as a chip on my shoulder to create a lot of income. I was ignoring the other areas of my life where I was just being extremely unhealthy. So not taking care of my body, my soul, and my mind. So I was taking care of my pocket with the chip, but the chip was eroding at my mind, body, and my soul. And so that's counterproductive. And we think that the money thing is going to solve all that or the production or filling that worthiness is you're going to be able to get it from production or anything like that. The reality is you just have to identify it for what it is because how you do one thing is how you do everything. Meaning if you're capable with the chip to get it done, then you're capable without the chip to get it done too. And so— I want to capture this because this is even something I'm just going to get selfish, something I battle with. Yeah. They say like any great man is really just trying to overcome something that happened in his childhood or with his father, like something to prove. I wouldn't say every great man. I say every man ever born since Adam. Okay. All right. So every man is really trying to heal the relationship with the father, right? So when you said, hey, that you— there's something that you said about the chip is always there. You can still do what you did without the chip. Like it's kind of this concept of if I let go of this obsessive nature or I let go of this striving because I want to get into a place of surrender, there's a fear of I'm not going to be able to produce the same way I produce because I've had all these results with striving. So walk me through kind of what you've seen operating, working with a lot of high-level people, say, in their career for a lot longer than I have. What does the surrender look like on the other side if you lean into, you know, another side of not having a chip on your shoulder? Well, I think it's— well, I think it all comes down to discipline, right? Discipline and consistency. And we all have disciplines in our life. So if you have discipline— so I'll use it like my discipline was at work. My discipline was making the calls. Setting the appointments, following through, following the systems, the structure, taking the money, saving the money, investing the money, right? Just systems. And then meanwhile, I'm 280 pounds, near diabetic, eating like crap, smoking, doing drugs, drinking. Like, okay, so like, why is it I can be really good over here doing that? Why can't I just apply those same disciplines over there? And the funny thing was, funny, it just is, is when I caught that and I applied those disciplines, and put similar structures and foundations around it, then I dropped down and like, now I'm not full-blown alcoholic. Now I'm not addicted to drugs. I'm not doing all these things that were essentially numbing. Minor details. Yeah, yeah. They're just numbing mechanisms for mind, body, and soul while it is that I'm making money over here. But then it's like, well, okay, let me just apply these disciplines to everything. So when you apply these disciplines in your relationship with God, in relationship to your health, And what are some of those things? I mean, journaling, praying, affirmations, working out, eating healthy, hanging around with people that have like-minded values of where you want to be and what you want to be, not who you were because you love them and like them. Those are all transformations that you make in habits and systems. And then you're going to see the byproducts of that and produce the fruit of that. So good. How has your relationship with Christ impacted your journey as an entrepreneur and leader? Oh man, big time, just in a different place. So, you know, I was saved in my early 20s, but that was him in my mind, not in my heart. And he's not dumb. He knows that. So ultimately, I think when it took a while for it to really show practice, I was always trying. I was always trying to solve all the problems, fix all the things, do all the things instead of letting him drive. And it's like, that's a lot, that's taxing. When we all have to solve all our problems on our own, provide for our family, provide for ourselves, do all these things all on our own, which was never intended to be, it's a lot. And that's why you see so many mental health issues and things like that. It's just too much. It was never meant for that. And so the more, once my father passed and my mother passed, I don't know, it's been a while. She passed away in 2009. My father passed away about 3 years ago at 89. And that was really a big transformation for me because when I walked in, he took his last breath, I saw him there. And that is the passing of the torch. Meaning if you really think about it, I'm next, right? Just God willing, I'm next. I don't want it to be my wife or my kids or anyone in front of that, so in the family, I'm next. And so you start looking about, you know, hey, well, where am I spiritually? Where's my relationship with God? Where's my relationship with mind, body, soul? And for me, that was making a big change in all those areas when that happened. That's beautiful, bro. That's awesome. All right, I'm gonna go one step deeper on the father dynamic and kind of the relationship with Christ, and then I'm gonna get super tactical on what we do on a day-to-day, just at MLS University. All right. We mentioned, I don't know if maybe the start of the episode or— no, we just did. I mean, everybody's trying to heal this father wound. So how did your father's passing impact the way that you viewed your Heavenly Father and your kind of your impact with the Trinity when you had to kind of watch your earthly father, you know, pass? Like, what was that experience like kind of as you were processing and reflecting on it? I think for me it was not so much my, uh, relationship with him, um, it was more my relationship with my children and then reflecting on my relationship with with my heavenly Father, because that's where I just watched my earthly father go. Like, clearly, clearly earthly, it's limited time. He lived to 89 years old. I mean, he wasn't a young guy, so like, you know, he had a good run, especially a guy who did like cocaine for 50 years, smoked for 75, and drank tequila for 75 of the 80, you know, 89 years. So like, that's about as good as it gets. And as long as he had an Instagram, it would have been some pretty interesting stories going back 50 years. Yeah, yeah, probably would have put him in prison. So how many kids? It was me and then half sister, and then I had 3 half, uh, half brothers. It was a Brady Bunch family is what— is what we had. Yeah. And then what about today? Because you mentioned you have children today, right? Yeah, I have 2 daughters, so 17 and then almost 21. How have you navigated being a part of their life as you've been a top producer in the industry? How is that relationship with fatherhood and production evolved over time? Man, I would say really shitty. May have played differently, you know what I mean? But for the first half, you know, again, I was stuck in I and ego and survival mode. And when you're in survival mode and trying to provide for the family and we lost everything, my daughter was 2, my youngest daughter was just born, it was full-blown survival mode. And so, there were a lot of things that happened in '09 other than losing everything, the market crash, reinventing myself, my father getting sick, my mom passing away, my brother passing away. It was a crazy year. And you You think that was a transformational year. Well, no, you either have a lighthouse or a foghorn. That was my foghorn year, as Rene Rodriguez would put it, meaning like I took it and I didn't do anything good with it. All I did was like focus on making money to dig us out of the hole because I had to feed the family. And then with my dad's passing, it was different. That was more a lighthouse, like, wow, all right, I need to really— And I think that's just wisdom with age, man. It's just, you know, the wisdom is there. And the night before my father passed, he was having conversations with people that were long gone and begging to be taken with them. So the veil got thin on that last day. The veil was getting thin and the next morning he was literally gone. And so it was pretty crazy because I was talking to his favorite uncle who he was talking to was, I called his son, that guy's son and said, "Hey dude, I ain't gonna lie to you, but I just wanna let you know my father was talking to his Uncle Johnny. It was his favorite Uncle Johnny." And he was wrestling through whatever he was wrestling through. It was, it was pretty— it was, it was a great reminder to me that, hey, like, don't forget about the spiritual, the unseen world, because it's a whole lot bigger than the seen world. And, and I almost thought sometimes there's more truth in fiction than there is in truth. Like, you know, I was just— I was recently reading an incredible book. These guys actually based out of California, but it's 12 Steps to Biblical Masculinity. But he was describing how the myth has been removed from the boyhood, like the folklore, the stories. Like, boys now just have black and white, but it's in that spirit of adventure, which is really the spirit realm you're talking about. Like, this place to let this spirit grow and live. Yeah. Is what's kind of suffocating, like, boys becoming men and having that, that adventure. Yeah, 100%. All right, so I got another question for you. What, what would you view— what's your relationship like with urgency? Right? Because I think urgency in our business is something that impacts a lot of different things, whether it's timelines, deadlines, goals, but also how you've evolved in your home life. So how, how do you view urgency today? What's really urgent? What's not urgent? What's a healthy relationship with urgency look like? Does that make sense? Well, I think there's urgency and then there's what's urgent and what's important. And you gotta be able to identify the difference between the two. Right. And sometimes we get confused about, thinking what's urgent is important. And so you could be staring at important, staring at urgent, and you're trying to deal with the urgent before the important. So I would say that a prime example, going back to your question about my kids at that time was, what was important? My kids. What was urgent? Me to make money. And so I got those confused versus like, all right, cool. I could have, and I'm not saying I spent some really good quality time with my kids, but I could have been way more present, not worked as many hours, and I probably would be in the same financial position I would be or wouldn't be. It wouldn't matter as I am today, but I can't go back and change that because I was blurred on the difference between important and urgent. Now I have a much different, you know, so like now I'm on, you know, get on a conference call. My 21-year-old will call me and then in the middle of the day and I'll just mute my Zoom button and stuff. And I'm in the middle of a meeting and people are doing, and I'll talk to her and she's like, "Why are you in a meeting?" I was like, "Yeah, I just muted it. No big deal." Like that would not be me ever, but I'm really clear about what's urgent and what's important. And so more and more, I'm way more clear on that. But it has to do with a lot less I, he over we, you know. That's so good, he over we. So, two questions. One is, actually, I'm going to say a statement for alignment, and then I'm going to ask a question, which is, I think we both agree, what is it for a man to gain the world and lose his own soul, right? I think we're in that concept of, hey, you just identify what's important, what's not urgent. But to transition from the people who have yet to really experience some of the fruits and they want to, they're listening to this and they're like, I get it, but maybe I don't have kids or maybe my kids are grown or maybe I'm in a season of just reinvent myself and I need to produce. What does the money change? Because I also think there's a fallacy on the other side, which is you kind of have these two schools of thought. You have people where money is everything and it becomes an idol, but then you also have this other group which is like, I don't need money. So what has money done for you? What doors has it opened? What has winning produced for you and your family on the positive side of putting in the work? Buddy, I think it's as simple as options. Money gives you options. And when you don't have options versus having options, let me tell you, it's way better to have options than no options. Okay? That's so good. I think that's the biggest thing. And what you do with those options. What's funny is that I spend most of my life worrying about getting money. And then now that I'm older, I worry about having too much money because God says that, you know, it's really hard for rich wealthy people to in and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't win with this whole thing. Right. But, you know, I say that joking, but not joking. True. Like, I'm like, you have to be kidding me. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Narrow is the path. Narrow is the path. And so, okay, well, what do we do with this? And this is something that I struggle with my therapist all the time. It's like, well, I better be doing good with it every chance that I can. And that you have to. Right. And I think it's way— for me, it's way more fun having the wealth, having options, and being able to have a mindset which is like, "All right, cool. How can I use this to have fun with people and share it with people and help people as much as I possibly can?" That's not who I was before. It was hold it, don't share it because we may lose it. So, this is a good question for somebody to process and an answer you can deliver. If I want to create a life of options, what things need to be non-negotiables in my life today? What is the non-negotiable path to building a life of options? Discipline and time management, right? So I'll show you this, 'cause it's like, prove it. All right. So here is the prove it. Green, red time, green time. I follow my calendar every single day and listen, the only thing that will adjust that calendar is God's appointment. And so if a God appointment comes up, then it is what it is. And I don't try and fight it. Otherwise it isn't like, you know, it isn't like Bob coming in with an important file while I'm in a meeting. That's not a God, that ain't a God problem. Like, So it is following the calendar no matter what, and it is being disciplined in doing so and making sure that I have a certain amount of green time on there, which is going to be anything to do with sales activities, things that draw money. Go deeper on that for me, bro. If you're comfortable, walk me through JJ's calendar. It's February 18th. Like, how did you develop this structure? What's your process like? How do you manage time in 2026? Yeah. So, uh, problem solving. Everyone's got problems, right? Everyone's got email. And, and would you agree that solving problems is Morning, noon, and night? Yeah, constantly. Right? And our work life, business, spiritually, everything. And referral partners, like they want to solve problems. And if I ask a referral partner, hey, can I solve this problem morning, noon, and night? Is that sufficient for you? They're like, yeah, awesome. I go, great. So I solve problems

from 8 to 8:30, 12 to 12:30, and 4: 19:48

30 to 5 every single day. And unless it affects a moving van, I'm not jumping on a problem except at those times. If it affects a moving van, I'll know and I'll jump on the problem. But that's how it is that I'm able to focus on all the things that are important to you. So then I'll ask my referral partner, so is taking an application on a new client important? They're like, yeah. Is getting a pre-approval to you important? Yeah. Is making sure that we get, you know, the loan approved important? Yeah. Is getting docs out important? Yeah. Is funding the loan important? Yeah. I go, cool. Which one do you want me to do first? And they go, all of them. I'm like, okay, well, so if I gave you that expectation, would that be a proper expectation? What would you say to me? I'd be like, no, I can't. No. You can, but it requires a system and a structure. So I have a team. This is my team. This is how they function. I have a process and a system and a calendar I follow. This is the process. And now I've set the expectation so that people understand. See, if you don't set an expectation, that's another non-negotiable, then they're going to set their own expectations. So if I tell you, hey PJ, what's urgent to you? It may be like right now. Some people it's 30 minutes, some people it's 24 hours. It's different for everyone. So If you are the one driving, you have to set the expectation as a non-negotiable as well. Bro, mortgage lending, game-changing advice to any loan officer, branch manager, sales leader. Did I hear you correctly in saying it's our responsibility to set the expectation with the referral partner of when they're gonna receive the service and the task that they're expecting? Yes, there's, I heard this, it's, if you don't have plans, then somebody else has plans for you and their plans have nothing to do with you. Wow. So, people wonder like, why is the realtor calling me at 10 o'clock at night or 9 o'clock at night and demanding a preapproval letter? So, then I'll joke with them. I'll go, okay, cool. Would you still do that preapproval letter if you're making love with your wife? Well, no. Would you do that preapproval letter when you're eating at the dinner table with your family? Well, no. So, I'll go, okay, so you do have boundaries. So redraw the boundaries, dude. And so once I was able to really redraw the boundaries, because don't worry, dude, I was taking loan apps on the toilet. I'd be going, you know, it just was what it was. I didn't have any boundaries. But the funny thing is I made less money and worked more hours when I had no boundaries than when I put boundaries. I made way more in less time. And so boundaries are non-negotiables and key. Why? Because now I can be hyper-focused with the money-making activities. So once I can clear the distractions of problem solving, then I can put in my, what we call red time, that's non-money-making activities on my calendar. And those are, you know, if you're working up files, those are, you know, anything that's non-money-making, meetings, things like that that are necessary and important, but not necessarily urgent so that I can get to unblocked green time every single day and get into a flow state where I am making calls, I am closing deals, I'm making appointments, And the more of the flow state that you can get into is no different than an artist getting into a creative mindset, as a salesperson getting into a sales mindset, then the more effective I'll be and the more closing I can do, then the more fruit you'll produce. That's beautiful, bro. So red is admin, green is money. Was there another color? Did you say you have yellow too? Yellow's my in-between time. So like, you know, problem-solving time, drive time. But red is for any non-money-making activity and green is for any green activity. For a lot of us, we recommend getting the red time done. My buddy Oleg likes to get the red time done in the morning and green time in the late afternoon. I'm a morning person. So, it really does depend on when your mind is sharpest. After 3 o'clock, I just get dumber and dumber as the minutes go by. So, just make sure when you're doing it, you're just getting them blocked so you can get into a flow state. Meaning if I'm doing meetings, man, and I'm having them back to back, I'm going to have really good impactful meetings. If I'm on a call or on calls for hours, I'm going to get in a flow and have really good calls. So just get into that flow status key. How do you discern what is the best and highest money-making activity as your opportunities have increased? Like, how do you use signal versus noise today to select what am I going to do on that green time? Because I would assume there are multiple things you could do that would be considered green time where you're at today. How do you discern what is the best activity for that green time? Yeah, I mean, generating leads is like the most important. So, it's, you know, getting people that don't know who I am to know who I am and say yes is more important than dealing with the folks that already know who I am or dealing with the folks that already said yes. I always see like loan officers are just like all over their pipeline. I was like, you're spending so much time with people that already said yes. And you've got 10 people that said yes and you're spending all your time with them. You got 50 people who haven't said yes. That's where you need to spend your time. So, I'll spend most of my time with the 50 people who haven't said yes yet. All right, so that's beautiful for growth, but you also seem like somebody that's super dialed in on systems, routine, process. So what does the other side of the table look like to nurture the existing relationships you have so you can continue to invest in them and maintain the momentum? Um, you know, so the pool guy's not at your house taking pre-approvals. Yeah, yeah. So I think honestly what I started out with, uh, just as an originator with myself and then adding maybe a team of one is just theme days. So you're calling all your referral partners on Mondays, You're calling on all files in process and everyone associated with them on Tuesdays. You're gonna call on all of your database on Wednesdays. You'll call all your pre-approvals on Fridays, and then you'll call all VIPs and business partners on, I'm sorry, pre-approvals Thursdays, then Fridays VIPs. And then at the end of each day, I would have a non-negotiable hour, which was just follow up on leads. So, when you think of like a store clerk locks the store, turns off the lights, puts away everything before he goes home. That hour at the end of the day is you get your CRM, your lead tracker, and you just look back at every lead for the past 30 days before you go home that day and just make sure, hey, did I convert the ones from today and yesterday? Were there any lost things that I should be calling? I might be able to touch bases with before I go home. And then boom, you go home. Bro, this is so good. Like the clarity and the way you're able to speak to what I think is one of the noisiest and most chaotic industries, which even though I was talking to the team today, guys, every single loan needs initial disclosures and they all have to be signed. Like, it's so mind-boggling how originators get surprised at the same milestones that have to happen on every single transaction. So who has spoken into you and what is your development of refining your process look like? Like, who was JJ Mazo the day he got his first pre-approval and who is JJ Mazo today in the industry? Well, when I, when I first did, you know, when I was first doing, there were no pre-approvals. I started as a call center loan officer doing refinances in 1996 in subprime era, right as the internet marketing was invented. And so Doug Lebda, who owned LendingTree.com, faxed us leads from his garage, to give you an idea of the size of his company when he did that. And so that's where I started. And I didn't know how to price a loan for 3 years. I just handed it to an old guy. He'd write on, you know, 4 points on the front, 4 points on the back, which was pretty standard, 3 to 4 points charge front and back. And then if I, he would tell me to go sell it. So I think it was somewhere around 9.99, 2 points on the front, 2 points on the back, cash-out refis on a 3-year adjustable with a 5-year prepayment penalty. So imagine that, like, and I didn't know any better, but this is how I was taught. And when I would go and ask for a discount, I would get yelled at and I'd have the paper thrown back in my face. So that was when I was, you know, younger and figuring it out. And then who I am now, it's okay, what are the client's needs? How can I best take care of them? How can I elevate my referral partner, make them look really good? Service. All paying it forward. Service provider versus an executor. And now it doesn't matter what we charge because it's not like we make more money charging more money. We're just trying to keep every deal together. So it's just doing the best we can for the client. That's, that's so good. What have been some of your biggest influences, either personal development, like non-negotiable books, people who have spoken into your life, people you've read and studied that you've appreciated? Either personal development or spiritually? Like, who's had a positive impact on the development of JJ? Man, so Christ, number one, you know, like, and that's a continued— my family, you know, my wife, big time. She has put up with so much crap, you know what I mean? And my daughters, just, just for sure. I know it sounds cliché, buddy, in that order, but it is not. And I'm really clear on that. I think my wife's the greatest business coach I've ever had. Yeah, like, my wife calls it. She's every, every time she's like, I don't know, but I don't get a good feeling about that guy. I'm never the good guy. I'm just like, "Ah, man." She's like, "4 for 4." So she's really insightful with that. I would say definitely my coaches that I've had, specifically what's funny is my business partner in Impact Coaching, Josh Sigmund, he's still like, I still turn in my activity trackers, buddy. See, prove it. Look, there's my calls, my activities. I write 'em down, I turn 'em in. These are my face-to-faces. In your activity tracker? Yeah, buddy. That's, I mean, one, if you gotta ask people to do it, then you gotta do it. And it keeps me honest. So like last week I missed a couple call blocks and I looked at my thing and I was like, dude, I saw it empty and I missed a lot of opportunities. And had I not looked at it that way, it would've had no impact. I just go to the next week, no big deal. But instead I came into this week way more focused on like, dude, I'm not doing that again. I need to fix it and I need to make sure that I'm honoring it. So my coaches for sure, man. All right. So educate me on your team, right? Because I mentioned before the episode, I have a couple of people that I look up to and they're like, JJ's the man. You got to talk to this guy. I heard you mention Christ on a mortgage podcast. I'm like, that's my people. I love it. Let's go. Kingdom, Kingdom Lending LLC. I love it. But what's your team structure, bro? So what did you guys do in volume in'25? Like, I'm pretty sure they're pretty monster numbers. So what did you guys close as a group in '25? So personal production business. So I still have my personal production team. I still have my branch, and then I have the division. So the personal production team, we closed closed out with about $125 million for the year. That team looks like last year was 2 pre-approval managers. Their job is lead to contract pre-approvals all day long. And then my backend is my processor, Jennifer. She's been with me 18 years. So you can imagine, dude, she's been through the ups and downs too. But one of the best, I think she's top 5 processors out of like 600 at my company. Really, really good. And then I have— How many files does she touch a month? What's that? How many units does she touch a month? She can do 30 with her eyes closed, honestly. And a lot of them are 10-day closes, but she's a unicorn, buddy. I mean, I, the rest of my processing team, I just hold on to 20, 25 max and make sure that you're flipping them and taking great care of the clients. Would you allow processors to be on your team processing less than 15 loans a month? If it's only because they're not getting enough loans, that's one thing. But no, they're, you know, we want them at 15 is the minimum, 20 is what I'd like to see them at. Okay. And we'll grow them, we'll help them, you know, be accurate and give great service. You know, we want to help them grow and get better. So we have an amazing processing team for the division. That's amazing. All right. So $125,000 personal production with 4 people, freaking unreal, bro. Well, then I have the best business development. So my wife helps me with business development and real estate agents. So my main point, because I can only really serve about 15 hours a week in my personal production business. So the way my business works now is highly leveraged. So for me, I'm doing 6 events per week in real estate offices or throwing the events myself. And then I'm very strategic on which realtors that I'm calling. I'm calling very whale realtors, team realtors, and I'm doing team meetings. So think if I can be one-to-many, that's a good use of my time. So instead of doing 50 appointments in a month, I can do 50 people face-to-face in an hour and a half, still have influence, still sell. And then my team can do the follow-up from there. Where my business development team, they're still belly to belly. They're doing 10 to 15 appointments every single week. The key is making sure that your entire team is helping you in the lead generation. This is where people mess it up. It's making sure that everyone, like, listen, if every single one of my team members, I don't need you to sell, I just need you to inform and be in touch. And if every single one of them can call 5 and 10 realtors every single day, That's how I'm able to have a bigger reach in a less period of time through more leverage. Wow. But you need the right people and the right training. I love this, bro. Even last night I saw— I don't know if it's executive assistant or operations manager assistant, whoever emailed me. I sent it to my executive assistant. I'm like, from now on, this is how we

email somebody before a podcast: 32:53

beautiful bio, crystal clear headshot, preparation day before. I'm like, bro, this dude's dialed. Like, it was just so clean. So kudos to you for putting the practices in place to create the leverage. So you got 15 hours personal production, that's$125 million last year, monster numbers. What, what's the rest of the time? Like, what else are you doing besides— uh, the rest is going to be, uh, obviously I spend, I spend about 4 hours a week at Impact Coaching. That's, that's a big— I have amazing partners. So again, that's leveraging, you know, the partners all support each other, the coaches all support each other so that we can leverage our time properly. Uh, and then the rest of it is in pouring into the division. So there's about 68 loan officers. We've got 25 locations. There's 150 total people. It's a small top 100 mortgage company within a company. So that takes most of my time on acquisition, retention, a lot of financial management, teaching, coaching, helping. And honestly, that's what fills my cup way more is just helping people through like, going, being where they are and helping them kind of go to where they want to go. That's incredible. How so? Well, let me— I'm going to ask you how, but first of what, what did the division close last year? So 125% production with the division, though, I think we ended up just right under $1.4 billion. So it was a great year. Yeah. Yeah. Massive numbers. Yeah. Anybody that's crappy market. Crappy market. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, downmarket. So for anybody that doesn't understand the numbers of lending, if you— and even if you are in lending, you still might not understand— $1.4 billion for a division is probably a top 50 IMB or a top 100 IMB. If you're doing $1 billion, $100 million a month. I mean, I know several correspondent lenders that aren't doing that volume and you're a division within a company doing massive, massive volume. All right. So who is the best fit for Impact Coaching, if a loan officer or top performers listen to this podcast and they want to know more about Impact Coaching and kind of what you've built, who's the best person that should reach out to you or your team for Impact Coaching? Yeah, it's someone that wants to evolve their business and be held accountable and be in a community of people that are like them, that are humble. You know, it's not— it is not— it's not military-like. It is figuring out what your goals are, what your plan is specific, and integrating them with some of the most advanced systems in the industry today that we use. And that's what, for us, it's how to make more money in less time and. So what's your and? Like how to make more money in less time and I like to run my division, travel, and run Impact. So what's your and? And we'll really fine-tune what that and is. And I would say, you know, I've been part of other coaching programs that are awesome. It's just the difference between, undergrad school and graduate school. So really going, okay, I've heard if it's new, it's not true. And I've learned that that's not true. So there's some good foundational things that we all stick to, like making phone calls, kind of important, seeing people, kind of important, but there's a lot more evolution that technology as well as systems and structure allow us to do from anywhere across the country. That's so good, bro, because I think what you just said is super powerful because, you know, the scripture, there's nothing new under the sun. But I also think there's things that are under the sun that nobody's talked about in a long time. Yeah, that have to be brought to light. So it might not be new under the sun, but nobody's teaching on it, so it's new to everybody else because they never looked under that rock, right? Um, all right, that's powerful. So what does excellence mean to you? Like, it seems like you guys are operating— I think you can't create leverage without having a certain standard or a desire or a design for how you want things built. So what does excellence excellence mean to you personally? And how do you transfer that relationship with excellence to your team? Like, how do you train, coach, teach on being excellent, performing at a high level, winning? Just kind of walk me through your mindset on that. Yeah, I think excellence is just being the best that you physically and mentally can be without any judgment of yourself or others. Really just like, you know, when you give it 110%, you know if it's excellent, you know if it's And so I think it's just giving. If you can give something everything that you've got, then that's excellence. Like, that's it. I don't think it's more complicated than that. If you give it half-ass or three-quarters of a percent, then that's like, that's excellent-ish. And then, you know, there's ish and then there's not. So I think sometimes we just overthink it. What are you still tracking today? Like you had that tracker, you had your calendar. What things are you measuring in your current role today? Oh man. I track all things finance, all things money. I track I track all things leads, all conversions of leads. I track activities. I track body fat percentage. Like those are the things. Yeah, that's it, buddy. Hey, when you're like, man, I think I was like 60% body fat. I was like literally the Michelin Man. So yeah, I pay attention to that stuff now and I don't obsess over it. I just, this is what, this is the goal. This is why that's the goal. These are the conversions of what they should be. And instead of obsessing over it— and there's nothing wrong with obsessing— but it's, I'm going to obsess over a solution. That's beautiful. All right. So I got, I got 3 final questions I kind of want to dive into. So first is, this is kind of ground level, and we'll build up as we go. What should a full-time loan officer be closing in 2026? If I'm a full-time LO, what should my standards be for production? And what advice would you give to that person if they're not closing what they want to be closing? Man, I would, I'd say at least 5 to 6 transactions a month right now, I think is for sure doable and consistent. And I would tell you, it's either you're talking, you're either talking to the wrong person, you're either saying the wrong thing, or you're not really doing the work. Usually it's, you're not really doing the work. And when I mean work, I don't mean working up files. Working up files is a $25 to$40 an hour job. Getting files is a $150-an-hour job. And so doing the work in the $150 zone, if you're doing the work, you're going to ultimately stumble upon the right people. And if you have enough conversations, you're going to ultimately learn how to say the right thing because you're going to realize what the right, wrong thing is. And so if you do the work, you'll talk to the right people and you'll say the right thing in time. And people say, "How do you just do that without scripting?" It's like, I don't know. I've been like 300,000 phone calls. Like, if you do 300,000 sit-ups, you're going to have a six-pack. It's not like, wow. It's like, wow, were you born like that? No, like it's just repetition. So I would just say more reps, more reps, more reps is going to get you what it is that you're looking for. And just being honest about what are your activities and are they money-making activities? Or are you being productive or are you just being busy? That's so good, bro. All right, final two questions. So what would be the biggest win for you over the next 6 months? Like, how do you still set goals and stay hungry and get after it after hitting milestones, funding $1 billion? So it's kind of two frameworks too. It's like, what, what are, what's a win for you at this point in your career? And how do you stay hungry to continue to set goals? Well, my 20th anniversary is the end of April. So if I stay married, stay married, then I'm, if I stay married, I'm winning. So I think I'll be okay. Amen. But you never know, I'm an idiot. Congratulations, bro. Happy anniversary. Yeah, thank you, bro. So, that's a big one. But I think for me, just retention, man, making sure that all my team's winning at a high level. So, when my team's winning at a high level, I'm winning at a high level. And, you know, impact over income, buddy. When you focus on impact, then the income comes. When you focus on the income without the impact, you're sitting there wondering where the income is. And I get it, but you focus on creating impact for your referral partners, create impact for your loan officers, create impact for the people around you. Around you, then the income comes. Bro, that's beautiful. All right, so when it's all said and done, you funded your last loan, docs are out, cleared to close, you've decided I'm not doing the CE, I'm not doing the continuing ed, JJ Mazo is walking off with a mic drop in the, in the industry. What do you want to be known for? Uh, genuine and, uh, generous. That's what I want to be known for. That's beautiful. Genuine and generous. I never heard that. That's, that's money. Um, bro, this is incredible. I filled up— so I— mistake on my part, rookie move— I started this with an almost full legal pad, so I now have notes on the back of a legal pad and in between existing notes covered. Uh, so it looks like a beautiful tattoo sleeve on my legal pad right now. I love it. But before we bounce, bro, would you mind if I pray over you? I would love to, man. Let's do it. All right, cool. Let me pray it out and then I'll close this out. So, dear Heavenly Father, I just want to thank you so much for this moment of fellowship with JJ. Uh, Lord, I thank you for his generosity and his authenticity to share his wisdom with the audience today. Lord, I just pray that this be a seed that gets planted in the mind and in the heart of somebody who is hungry, who is curious, who needs this wisdom to go to the next level in their life. I just continue to pray for amazing conversation, intimacy, passion, joy over JJ and his family, over his team, and they continue to win at a high level and do it with peace every step of the way. Lord, we love you, we praise you, we honor you. We thank you for this moment in time In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Great prayer, brother. And hey, anyone that wants to come see us at Impact, we have our Lab event in Newport Beach, California, April 22nd and 23rd. And it's— they always sell out early. So if they go to impactelitecoaching.com, they can check us out. We've got quite the lineup and quite the event for our members. And we have so many guests in the room that usually sells out. Amazing. All right, so guys, we will include a link below on the show notes to get more information about JJ and his coaching group. Group. JJ, thank you so much for your time, brother. Congrats on an incredible career. Excited to see what you continue to do, and I appreciate your time today. Yeah, thank you, brother. I appreciate you. My pleasure. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the High Level People Podcast. If you've learned anything from today's content, or if it made a positive impact on your life in any way, please feel free you subscribe on your favorite platform. More importantly, if you think there's somebody in your life who would benefit from today's episode, please shoot them a link. Encourage them to do the same. Encourage them to subscribe because every week we're committed to adding value. I look forward to seeing you soon. Hope you guys have a blessed day, blessed week, and let's go.