Welcome to Mortgage Talk with Mark Harston, the program that not only talks about mortgages, taxes, and interest rates, but Mark and his guest talk real estate trends and your home. He also answers your mortgage questions to help you make the right financing or refinancing decisions. Now here's Mark Hairston.
Happy day everybody, and welcome back to Mortgage Talk with Mark, where every week our goal is to bring on some guests that will help you make better decisions in your life, in your real estate, your investments are your business. And I'm really excited today to have on not only a good friend of mine but also my business coach. And he lives in Dallas and phil His company is in
one academy. He'll introduce himself in just a second. And he has helped me immensely over the last couple of years and working with me and really my mindset around business. You know what it takes to set goals and to achieve goals and to think positively and get past hurdles. And it was really strange. I haven't told you this, Bhil yet, but I had a dream about this last night, This podcast which has never happened to me. I've probably had one hundred of these shows. I've never dreamed the
night before about it. So anyway, I want you to introduce yourself and let's get into the heart of it, because we've only got about twenty five minutes.
We could talk for hours, but let's get started. Yeah.
No, In short thirty thousand foot view, my name is Phil Treadwell. Been in mortgage, in real estate sales and marketing side of that business for twenty two years. Was an originator, you know, branch manager, area regional VP, national director, all the things, have a passion for podcasting, have a podcast for the industry as well. And for the last three years I've been coaching mortgage and real estate professionals.
And it wasn't anything that I had really planned on doing or anticipated, but almost every professional success that I've ever had I can directly tie to a coach, a mentor someone kind of taking their experience and imparting it to me in wisdom, and through a series of events, ended up starting some workshops and turning into a coaching business practice, if you will. So I do a lot with individuals and companies and larger groups and things of that nature, But really my mission and passion is to
help driven people overcome obstacles and maximize results. I love it and that's essentially what I do and having a lot of fun doing it.
Yeah, well you're very good at it too.
And so everything we're going to kind of talk about today of either heard you talk about or we've been in conversation about. So let's get started around and tell us a little bit about M one Academy real quick. I mean, where the name came from, what it means, you know, what sort of about the mission, if you will.
Sure in one Academy, the M one stands for mindset first, and mindset's not the only thing that's going to make someone successful, but it is the most important thing because our mindset controls our attitude and our actions, which are the only things that we can control. We can't control the market, we can't control our sphere of influence, we can't control our business partners. But what we can control are the things that we do and how we respond
to the things that happen to us. And so mindset's a big part of this. Whenever I first started this and was doing some workshops, they were very tactical here's the sales and marketing playbook. And people were getting results, but not the level that I felt like they should, being that we had this playbook kind of laid out for them. And really, my coach and mentor at the
time said, you're you're underestimating some of the intangibles. You're underestimating the mindset and some of these foundational elements of understanding why you do what you're due. How does that create your unique value offer in your in your marketing, your messaging. You're you're underestimating having a north star and
those milestones and those goals and habits. And so that's really the genesis of where it came from, and I think it's been very impactful and kind of setting us apart from, you know, some other companies that are just like, Okay, here's the seven steps of success or here's the five things you need to do right.
Yeah, work your data base, blah blah blah. But it takes something to overcome some of those fears, you know, So so what are the Let's start with some of the more common mindset blocks that you see in small business people. You know, I know you don't just work with small business people, but in general, what holds people back from achieving those goals.
That's a great question. There's really two things that hold people back from taking action, and the first is fear right fear of failure. And this is one of my favorite topics to talk about because we were taught in school. We were taught growing up that failure and success were opposites. In school, you couldn't fail every test, fail every quiz, even if you learned what you got wrong. In that
academia world, you're still a quote unquote failure. And so we were taught that, you know, success is on one side and failures on the other, and you have to make a conscious decision which way you want to go. But in the real world, we hear it on stage from people that are very successful or have had a lot of results. We hear it in podcasts, we hear
it in books. Failure and success are actually stacked. We go through failure to get to success because there's never a situation where doing nothing or not taking action is better than doing something, even if you fail, because if you do nothing, you get nothing. If you do something, you have an opportunity to get a win or get a result, or maybe you take that loss, but that L and loss is actually L for learn. You get to learn something that can potentially propel you forward. So
the opposite of failure is not success. The opposite of failure is excuses. And we have a ton of excuses about why we don't want to call.
It what do you call it? X quis or something like that.
Yeah, it's so there's there's there's a book called the Magic of Thinking Big, and there's three failure diseases that it talks about. There there's detail itis, excuse IIS, and procrastination. And we all fail or you know, we all suffer from one of those those three failure diseases. And and we really we get in our own head, we overthink it.
And so I think the other thing that really holds us back is what are people going to think, right if I go and try something new or if I do fail, Because a lot of people may not necessarily be a fear failure itself, but they might fear people seeing them fail. And we have to remember, listen, they don't pay our bills, they don't live our life, they don't have our relationships with our family, they're not in
our spiritual walk. So how do I go out and realize that this spotlight that I think is on me isn't because a lot of people are too busy thinking the spotlights on them.
And so we just have to get of.
Our own head and realize that everything we want is on the other side of that fear. Everything we want will happen through action, through going out and doing the things I call them daily habits, daily disciplines are non negotiables. We've got to wake up every day with intentionality and start doing those things. We've got to intentionally take action spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally, and then yes, and our business financially.
Sure.
Yeah, there's an old saying about you know, you have to get used to being uncomfortable, you know, to extend yourself out there a little bit and move past that fear. Now, my experience over the years is that that's good information until the market shifts, you know, and right now, be in the mortgage space, it's tough out there, you know. So let's talk about those daily habits. What would you recommend for me or anybody else who's whether it be
the real estate or mortgage or any small business. And this weird sort of strange economy we're in to to move toward those goals faster.
That's another great question.
We list them as F five. There's five f's faith, family and friends, finance, fitness and focus. And another way to think about it is just what I said a second ago, spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, financial. We all need to come up with one or two, maybe three activities actual action habits that we can do on a daily basis. So a lot of those can get knocked out in
some type of a morning routine. Okay, there was about a year and a half, two years I was waking up at four thirty four forty five every single morning. And I still wake up pretty early, just not quite that early, but I still have that morning routine. And what people need to understand is that our mind, from a mindset perspective, only distinguishes between wins and losses, but
not how big they are. So when we go out with our daily habits and we get up a little bit early, maybe we go to the gym, or take some quiet time, or we you know, read a book, get in the word, listen to a podcast. We're taking care of ourself spiritually and mentally. And again, if we do a workout, go for walk, whatever. Then we're taking care of ourselves physically and we're able to check those
boxes off. Those boxes are essentially small wins. And there's a really good book by James Clear called Atomic Habits where he talks about stacking habits. The way I like to frame it is we're stacking wins since our mind only distinguishes between wins and losses. If we wake up and knock a bunch of these daily habits out, we've been stacking wins and that creates momentum. Anytime we check things off of a list, we want to check more things off of a list. That momentum creates more motivation.
And the other thing that it creates us confidence. Those people that have massive confidence, it's not because they were born that way. Confidence isn't a personality trait. Confidence is a skill that we learn, and we learn that through doing all those little activities and realizing that that's moving the needle in my life, that's moving the needle in
my business way more than the losses do. So if we go through that routine, knock out some habits, you know, maybe drink a protein shake instead of you know, eating a donut right, we reach out to a handful of friends and family to reconnect. We do those things, those habits in our business. What happens is then if we maybe we have a call or a meeting that it just goes terrible. We just bomb it. Our mind's like, Okay, well that was a loss, but this morning I took some quiet time. That's a win.
They can see each other.
Out and you still have momentum. So tactically, we've got to take action in our business. We have to take action in our life. But the way that we trick our mind is to realize that that momentum comes from celebrating those little wins. We focus too much on the things we didn't get done or the things that we did wrong. That's not how it works. We have to focus on the habits that we did do things right and not the level or the size of it.
Yeah, and I follow a guy on social media named Jordan Peterson. Has been been around for a long time and one of Jordan Peterson's saying is the first thing to do and in your morning is make your bed. You know, start with something small that you accomplished to get you started.
The next thing, you know, and I love that.
And I also I've worked with Phil Jones quite a bit who wrote a book called Exactly What to Say.
And I love that book.
It's a communications book, and he talks about these four letters, LB and NT. You know, at the end of the day, look back at your day, or even after this podcast, I may l be and NT. It says what did I like best about it?
And next time? What it would I have done differently? You know.
So I'm not saying that if you have a failure in your life, whatever it call, didn't go well or or you lost a client, you know, don't take it personally. Just kind of look at it from a third party and say, what would I do differently next time? What can I have learned from that?
You know?
And that's exactly right. It's it's about having self awareness. That's kind of how I frame it. Self awareness isn't about being critical of ourselves. It's not about being punitive. Self awareness is understanding what are my takeaways that, hey, I did really well on that, and where are some ways that I can improve. And a very close pairing with this topic is around feelings and our emotions. So we feel a certain way feelings are simply feedback. Feelings
are not necessarily truth. Yeah right, It doesn't mean that they're not true, but it doesn't automatically mean they're true just because we feel a certain way.
Feelings are feedback. It's about a need.
Being met or a need not being met. So happiness, joy, excitement a need was met, right, Frustration, anger, jealously, resentment, that's about a need not being met. So when we feel a certain way, if we'll have some self awareness to understand, what is my takeaway here, almost in an academic sense, what is the takeaway of a need that wasn't met? Or what is it about this feeling that I can use it to Readjust then all of a sudden we can go to our more logical decision making
mind and move forward. So, just to your point, we may feel a certain way about how something went, but if we sat down and really had that self awareness and made the assessment and again not judgment, but assessment, we can really learn a lot of things about ourselves. And a quick, easy example was my very first podcast episode. It was very telling. I'd never heard myself for thirty or forty minutes on a recording, and I had a really high profile guest, and I was really big in
the mortgage industry and it still is. And I had all my list of questions, so I asked him a question. He gave me great answers, great feedback, and I said, fantastic. And then I read the next question and he got done, and I said fantastic. I don't ever remember using that as a segue before, but I had to really sit and look and realize I'm not very good at this and I need to really hone in how can I have conversations with people, create segues and not just say
the word fantastic. So self awareness is very important.
Fantastic, phil, I love that.
So I want you to coach me out just for a second, because it's not just me, but but one of the things I have to really look at my own businesses is by follow through, you know, with clients, or follow up. You know, it could be current clients after closing or whatever. And why do most small business owners struggle with that?
What do you think? You know? There was a variety of reasons.
The two that come to mind first is we focus too much on being busy, not productive. And I coach a lot of people on really time management and productivity. And a really easy exercise is everyone should time track their day in thirty minute increments for about three or four days, maybe five days, and everything you did just in thirty minute increments, just put it on some type
of an Excel spreadsheet. I mean, we have a timetracker in our coaching program, and you want to go through it for three or four or five days, and then you want to go back and use yellow light. Excuse me, green light, yellow light, red light. Green light activities are what are income producing, revenue generating activities that only I could do? Yellow light is what are income producing activities that someone else could have done? Or maybe we're more
long term revenue generating things. And then red light is, hey, this was either wasted time on my business, this isn't moving the needle at all. So after we timetrack for three or four or five days and then apply that red light, yell light, green light, all of a sudden, we realize we're not being as productive in our business as we think we are, and so a lot of times we get distracted with all these other things. The other reason that people don't necessarily follow up like they
should is that's not necessarily fun. We want to do things that we feel like we get some Again, that dopamine release type of face is really worthwhile exactly. But what we have to remember is in every single business, any type of sales, right, any type of marketing, eighty percent of sales come after five touches, So six or more is where eighty percent of sales come from. So follow up is extremely important. Now, a touch doesn't have
to be a full twenty or thirty minute conversation. It could be a social media post that they see a text message that you sent, you know, seeing them out in public somewhere and shaking their hand. But we have to follow up because most people give up after two or three times, and really we need a lot more than that to get people to develop that trust with us, that what they want to engage in whatever our business practice is.
Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that.
So it speaks to me because that's exactly that. The whole green light thing really speaks to me too. Focus most of your days, but most you can on that because I get busy. You know, there's a lot of busy work and you think you're being productive and you're not.
I say, I absolutely you know, that's the biggest trap people fall into.
So when we're.
Speaking about these habits and these daily routines, if you will, moving towards something, let's talk about goals and the value of goals. You know, could be a weight loss goal, it could be you know, I just had surgery friday. I've got to make some changes in my lifestyle. So those, you know, those are goals have sort of been forced on me, if you will. But let's say we want production goals and business goals. Talk about you know what
that looks like, what are we moving toward? You know, and everybody's different, But the talk about the value of goal setting.
I love this topic as well. Percent of people do not achieve the goals that they set for themselves in a given year. Ninety three percent of people don't achieve their goals. I'm one of the statistics as well. But the two reasons that people don't achieve their goals, the first one is clarity. We're not clear enough about what our goal is. So, you know, you just talked about health and fitness. A lot of people are like, hey, I want to get fit this year, or I want
to lose weight. Well, what does that mean, if you want to get fit, is that losing pounds? Is that losing inches? Is that losing body fat? Is it? BMI?
You know?
Do you want a six pack?
Like?
What is that thing? And same with losing weight, we have to it has to be very specific and measurable. Too often we make goals subjective as opposed to objective. A goal needs to have a very specific did it happen or not? And we need to have a specific date, because a goal without a date is just a dream. So that's the first step of this. The second reason we don't achieve our goals is we just don't want
it bad enough. We set arbitrary goal that we think we're supposed to set, or this is what I should want next, but we don't tie it to something we want really, really badly. And so the way that we come up with the things that we want is, as I coach on a north star, that north star is that ideal version of us. I heard a quote one time that the definition of hell is meeting the person that you might have become, and that really resonated for me. I'm like, heck with that, Let's figure out who that
person is. Let's think about what do they look like, what do they feel like, what are their relationships like, what's their spiritual life like, what's their financial life like? And then reverse engineer it and think about some big milestones that you need to do to get to that place, and then you have a starting point and those are your initial goals. And so what happens is when we wake up every day and think about our habits and the calendar appointments we have, we don't take action, not
because we're not capable, it's because we're not willing. We have to think about it in two categories, capable and willing. And I think about that when I hire employoyees. We talk about that in team building. We just talk about that within ourselves. Most of us are capable of what we want to do. We're just not willing. And the willingness comes from it has to be something that you want, that you want really badly, and the good news is
we get to choose it. So our goals almost turns into like this this tough conversation, or they become a dirty word, when really it's about set a goal that you want and a lot of times and this is the last thing I'll say here, we think it has to be a really high moral ground, or it has to be something where there's this overarching good that we're doing,
or this this helping people think. Almost everybody that I talk to in mortgage, in real estate about what they're why is, or even small business owners is I want to help people. That's awesome. But whenever on a day to day basis, when you get frustrated, when you get stuck, whenever you just don't feel like it helping people isn't probably enough of a burning desire to go out and take action and do the things we need to do.
So sometimes it can be a tangible object. Maybe you want to get a nicer car, maybe you want to take your family on vacation. It can be hey, I want to retire my spouse or pay my parents' house off. Sure, but some of the most effective little sprints, you know, ninety one hundred and twenty day six month sprints that I've seen people do, are because someone wanted a nice
watch or they wanted a handbag. But the cool part about it is you have to get those things out of abundance, and the way that you get that abundance is by going and doing more work. So if you've got to find a little trinket or or you know, some material thing to get you to go take action because you really want that thing. Sure, and the business
that you're doing, the overarching why is to help people. Well, then it's okay to have something that you want to chase because it gets you to take action and that action is in turn helping people. So sometimes we just have to re engineer it in our mind that those really big, you know, pretty sounding things that we're trying to achieve, and that's great, it's not that we're disingenuous.
Sure, we also have to.
Have something on a day to day basis to get us to go do the things we need to do.
Yeah, or you could be like me and go buy a new Ram fifteen hundred and then go.
What you motivate you you know what I'm saying.
Unfortunately, that's how I've been to is like Okay, well I'm gonna go get this thing, and now I have.
To do the work. Now.
As you probably know, I've been in the mortgage space for forty years, so I'm not going anywhere.
But but but there.
Are a lot of people who are in a position now they have to shift, you know, our pivot and maybe in a career, and there's always this idea of don't.
Quit, don't quit, don't quit.
When do you how do you coach people or help people discern when maybe it's time to make a shift, maybe change industries or whatever. Do you you help people on that level too?
I do, and and typically the things that I help with this is a time for a change of company. Yeah, is it time to you know, change the model or the focus within their business. But the only way that I can really talk about this is to talk from my experience, because there's been different jobs, different businesses, different things that I've done that I was all in and I was one hundred percent focused and this is my thing. And what I realized is is it turns for me
into a spiritual issue. Sometimes God takes us to a place and wants us to go down a road because he wants to equip us or he wants to bring us to some place spiritually. And it wasn't that we were supposed to achieve that goal. It wasn't that we were supposed to get to the end of that road. But there was something along the way in pursuing that in that process that we needed to get from it,
and then it was time to pivot. And you know, you even think about, you know, David's passion in life was to build the temple, but he needed to be brought to a place spiritually. God wanted him to want to go build the temple, but it wasn't for him to do. That was for his son to do. And
so there's things like that. There's a really good book that I read by one of my former pastors called Finding the Favor of God, because there's not a lot of books on favor, and it talked about story in there, and that's always resonated with me because regardless of what someone believes, whether they're a believer or not, we have to understand that things happen for a reason. Sure, and so sometimes we're supposed to go all in down a path, we're supposed to go all in down a road, but
there's something else in store. There's something we have to learn. There's a place that we have to get brought to, you know, in our mindset, in our emotions, in our spiritual life. And then once we've gotten that thing, it's okay to pivot. And that was always the litmus test for me if I know this isn't the road I'm supposed to be on, then I look back, Okay, what did I get from this?
What did I learn? Now?
These things may have been equipping me for this other path.
Yeah, I love that.
So it's a lot of times it's the intuition or the ability to pray into it or to listen to the Holy Spirit to for direction, you know, yes, because sometimes I've been on my knees where I didn't know what I was going to do, you know, and then there was a sign to do something.
And that's been a big part of my journey too. And it's scary.
Sometimes, but it's always played out in what I call grace. And so that's a little bit different conversation than business per se, but it could be anything you know in business part of that because right now it's fairly scary times out there, you know, for a lot of people.
It is, and I think people, you know, a lot of times we get caught up in the fear and what's not working for us, that we missed the opportunities. Right we're on our knees, we're begging and pleading for a certain thing to happen and we don't hear anything, and it's because that's not the thing. We need to be looking elsewhere. Or sometimes we keep praying for the same thing over and over and we've already been given the answer, right, but we didn't hear it, we weren't
listening it, we didn't like that answer. And so those are from a discerning standpoint that you're talking about. I think that's massively important that we go back and have that self awareness and realize that in every difficult market and every challenging time in our life and everything that happens, there's an opportunity there. There's an opportunity to grow and learn. But there's also very tangible opportunities in the mortgage in
real estate market. Yes, it's difficult, but there are so many massive opportunities out there right now for people to create wealth with real estate. In our text community, I don't know if the text went out or if we scheduled it for later this week, we have a text going out that shows, according to the Federal Reserve, homeowners
have forty times the net worth on average to a renter. Well, that's the challenge and problem that most people have in their lives is the financial side of things, Well, we can go solve that problem for people. You know, there's other types of opportunities even with higher interest rates. Well, yes, mortgage rates are higher than they have been over the last few years, but not historically. But consumer interest rates have massively outpaced mortgage interest rates, and people are sitting
on the most equity on average at any time in history. Well, you could lower someone's monthly out go by fifteen hundred one thousand dollars a month by consolidate some of that consumer debt. Sure, yes, you're refinancing your mortgage to a high rate, but you're saving money on a monthly basis that you can then throw back at your mortgage and
pay them off a lot faster. There's lots of opportunities, and I think that's in those times of desperation, those times of survival mode, we really have to try to scope out as much as possible and say, Okay, what is it I'm supposed to learn here, or where's the opportunity that I can really go make something of the situation.
Yeah, that's great.
We've only got about a minute and a half, so let's wrap this up with one or two pieces of advice you give small business owners in twenty twenty five that may help them achieve their goals or get out of their own way if you will.
Yeah, two quick things.
One, the gap between where you are and where you want to be is nothing more than a decision. And I heard a quote by Tony Robbins one time that said, you've not truly made a decision unless it creates new action. So if you have a different place you want to be in your life, your business, it starts with the decision. And as soon as you make the decision, you have to go take action. And the second thing I would say is that success is about consistent and persistent effort
over time. We know what it means to be consistent, but staying persistent is being consistent whether you get results or not. Sometimes we stay consistent but it doesn't work out and we stop, or we get results and stop.
But we have to stay persistent over time. And that's really what's going to move the needle for people is we give up right the book three Feet from Gold, six Feet from Gold, whatever the title of the book is, you can't give up, and most people give up right before their breakthrough.
I love it. I love it, really enjoyed this conversation. Phil. I knew I would.
I even dreamed about it last night. You know, so I don't care what you say. This is fantastic, Okay.
I love it. Just I appreciate you, Mark. This has been a lot of fun having this Coverea.
We could keep talking for several hours, but I've got to wrap this up. And I appreciate it again and you being on and we'll talk soon.
This has been Mortgage Talk with Mark Hairston. Mark is a mortgage advocate with Texas Mortgage Source LLC, offering personalized mortgage solutions, fast customized quotes, great rates, and service with integrity. Contact Mark at Markhirston dot com. Mark Hairston dot com. You can call our text Mark at five one two seven eight nine sixty nine sixty seven. That's five one two seven eight nine sixty nine sixty seven and come back next week for more mortgage talk