67: The Best Advice I’ve Ever Received

Welcome to the 10 Loans a Month podcast, where mortgage brokers become business owners. And now, your host, Scott Peckford.

Hey, Broker Nation. Today, I want to share with you the best advice I've ever received. And this is from a mentor. So some of you may or may not know, but prior to being in the mortgage business, I spent nine years as a paramedic. So I've been mortgages for 16 years now, nine years as a paramedic. And it was a fantastic career. Initially, when I was like 20 years old, I wanted to be a financial advisor. And so I took my Canadian securities course. And the problem was I looked like I was 15.

And when you look 15, of course, I'm like, nobody in their right mind is going to give me their money, which is true. And so I decided, hey, why don't I do something different? And I had this opportunity to be a paramedic. And so I did. And I still look 15, but I reason that if I look 15 and I showed up as a paramedic and I look 15, there was no 912. They couldn't call and ask for someone else. And actually, I did have sometimes patients be like, are you?

person helping me. And I've also had nurses that would give me a hard time about it as well. But in any case, I had this one guy that I work with named Glenn Weinman. And Glenn is an awesome guy. And so in the ambulance, he's called the unit chief, which is basically the boss of your station and your area.

And I learned so much from Glenn. He's an amazing guy. And advice he's said to me, because, you know, as a paramedic, you get stressed. You show up to a scene, there's an accident. It could be.

Heart attack could be anything like, you know, and so it's very easy to take on that stress and then even worse, take that stress home with you. And then, of course, that affects your family and everything else. And so he saw me as a young guy who cared and was trying hard. And he sat me down one day and said, you know, Scott. I got to give you some advice. It's important that you listen to this and that you apply this. And he said to me, you didn't cause the mess. You're just here to help.

Always remember that you didn't cause the car accident. You're just there to help. You didn't cause the person to fall off their roof. You didn't cause the person to have a heart attack or have a stroke and, you know, whatever the situation was. or you know even worse a suicide or a drunk driver or anything like this that were always for me the two that bothered me the most that seemed completely preventable were suicides and drunk drivers but in any case

this mantra that I'd remind myself of is I didn't cause the mess. I didn't cause this. It doesn't mean that I don't care about the outcome, but I have to understand that I didn't cause this and I have to just do my part. And you know what? I used to watch those medical shows. So like the ER and these different shows.

And I'd see how worked up the doctors would get over a patient and they'd be so emotionally attached to the outcome. And I got to be honest, when I worked in the ambulance, I didn't see that. I saw doctors and nurses who cared deeply. but they did not get emotionally attached to the outcome because if they did they'd be a wreck honestly i think you know that's tv and tv they act like oh my gosh i can't believe that you know if you did that you would be emotionally

drained after every shift. You'd probably be, you know, you have to take drugs or have to self-medicate somehow in order to deal with the trauma of it. What I found is that people cared a lot, but they emotionally detached from the outcome and they were able to do a better job of.

you know, staying rational, focusing on how to treat the patient. And so how does this apply to your mortgage business? Well, a couple of different ways. When you think about this, so, you know, I found at least initially when I became a mortgage broker, I actually found the mortgage business to be more stressful.

because I kind of had forgotten this, you know, I always felt like it was my fault if a client did something stupid. Well, you can't fix stupid. So you can't always account for situations that clients are going to do. Now you can give bad advice. And that is on you if you give bad advice, which is why I think, you know, as a new mortgage broker. This is such a challenging career. And I have made every mistake imaginable, like every mistake imaginable since I've been in the mortgage business.

And you can only learn it one mistake at a time in some cases. But in any case, when you think about this, you didn't cause the message when you're here to help. So the first is you didn't cause somebody to write an offer $100,000 over asking without getting pre-approved, right? You're just there to help.

So somebody does that, that's not on you. You know, you pre-qualify a client and you say, here's what you qualify for. And they come back and say, oh, this is what I got. You need to immediately, one of the important things to do is put that right back on their lap. Because if you take ownership of their problem, you're going to be stressing out, not sleeping, getting an ulcer, worrying about it.

Instead, say, oh, my gosh, like, you know, somebody comes in, they write an offer 100K over asking over what you qualified them for. And they say, hey, you know, I'm hoping you can figure this out. Say, oh, man, like, what was your plan? So put it back on them. So this is how I would do it. Hey, congratulations on getting an offer accepted.

looks like the purchase price is a hundred thousand dollars over what we pre-approved you for i'm just curious what your plan was for that extra 100k right make them tell you they're not going to have a plan okay there's a chance oh family's going to help me awesome If they don't have a plan, this now becomes their problem. Okay. So as you know, we qualify you for this amount. You went over. So I can tell you, I'm going to do everything I can to get it done. But this is by no means guaranteed.

right now mr customer you need to do x y and z if you want any chance of getting this approved for you I need debt, debt, debt, debt, like immediately. So I'm not taking on the fact that they decided to do something stupid. You know, somebody comes to you and they got a 500 credit score and they really want to buy a place.

You can feel empathy and you can be concerned for them, but that's not on you. You didn't cause them to miss payments or whatever the situation was that they had going on. You're just there to help. Don't own that. you know or you get somebody who takes out a car loan in the middle of the pre-approval process and you find out halfway through so again this is not on you this is on them if they make these mistakes you got to put this right back on their lap ask them how they're going to solve it

right when you do that the problem becomes theirs now you can work on the problem together but don't you own the problem don't you take the problem on it's like oh my gosh this is my bad you know no no no that client did something they shouldn't have done so i see that you took out a car loan Did you have a plan for this so that you could still qualify? Right? No, I didn't. Okay.

So I'm going to immediately put the problem back onto them. Then I'm going to help them try to solve it. Sure. I'm not going to be like, it's not my problem, but I didn't cause that mess. So for me, this particular advice that I got from Glenn has been absolutely. just invaluable for my mortgage business for any business really because it's so easy it can be very stressful as a mortgage broker it can be very there's lots of things that can go wrong as you know

And you do what you can to mitigate the potential challenges. But when it's 100% a client situation, you should not. own the fact that they've done something wrong or done something stupid you can still care for them and try to fix it but don't own it because if you take ownership of it and it becomes your problem they're going to bed at night not worrying about it and you're stressing out trying to figure out oh my gosh how am i going to come up with this extra money what am i going to

to do all the like no no no stop right there just like as a paramedic if you do that as a paramedic your career is very short because you will be stressed out and you'll have ptsd in no time and it's the same thing as a mortgage broker if you want this to be a long-term career you can't take ownership of other people bad choices. You can just make sure they understand the choices that they've made.

And then say, hey, but I'm here to help you. But in order for me to help you, here's what I need to do. And then start working towards a plan. And then if it doesn't work out, it's not on you, right? You know, one of the other things that Glenn used to say to me is that unfortunately, sometimes people die. That's rule number one as a paramedic. And then rule number two.

You can't do anything about rule number one. He'd say to me, Scott, you could have somebody who's like in front of the best hospital in the country with the best team on at the time, the best ER docs, the best nurses, and that person can still pass away. And there's nothing anybody can do about it. So you just be like, OK, I'm going to do my part. I'm going to do my best. But I also can't control outcomes.

And hopefully you find that helpful. I know for me, that's been really helpful in terms of mindset shift that I needed. And I've had to use numerous times. So give it a try. Next time, write it down somewhere. You didn't cause the mess. You're just here to help. Thank you, Glenn, for being such an amazing mentor to me when I was a paramedic.

And I don't think you realize the, I'm sure maybe you have. So he mentored a lot of new paramedics. I'm sure that a lot of them reached out to him over the years, but you've definitely had a big impact on me. So I appreciate that brother. And if you guys are listening to this.

And you are thinking, how do I get my mortgage business going? How do I get good mentorship? We have a program called 10 Loans a Month that is specifically designed for mortgage brokers that are doing more than $100,000 a year in commission. And they want to do more and they want to do it more.

efficiently check that out at 10 loans a month.com and if you're a rookie and you're still trying to figure out how do i get to 100k then go check out rookie to rockstar.ca we have a specific program designed because it's a lot more challenging the first 100k is the hardest buy has the highest failure rate, the most stressful, but go check out RookieToRockstar.ca. And thanks again for listening to this episode. This is an I Love Mortgage Brokering production.