Achieving Time Freedom: Strategies for Mortgage Professionals to Balance Work and Life

Aloha. Welcome to Hawaii, the Lending Leadership Podcast. I'm out here from beautiful Hawaii for two full weeks. Today is actually my last day bumming out, so this is about the most tan you'll ever see me ever. You know, one of the things and one of the constant things we're gonna be talking about with lending leadership is time freedom, which is one of the most important things, in your life. The first eighteen years of my career, all I did was work, work, work. I never took real vacations, never had any time to myself on vacation, wake up early, stay up late, sneak away, work for a couple hours. One of the things I learned through coaching the last six years was how to build my team, how to scale so I can take off for twenty four hours.

So I

know I could work, you know, ten hours over the weekend. I can actually have life, enjoy my family, which became important. I got four kids. It became more and more important as they drove. So it could be a constant thing. How to build your team. I have four licensed loan offices to my team, and it's been a blessing. So, that's all I got.

Robert and Tom, take it away.

The

landing leadership with the mortgage pros. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Dave, for that awesome intro. Honestly, a little jealous of you being in Hawaii, one of my favorite places to be, but, happy Tom and I can hold the fort down while you're off gallivanting, brother.

Per usual.

Nah. Per usual.

Totally kidding. Dave's Dave's a grinder. He deserves this time away, and we all do.

Everybody needs time away. Right? It's good to recharge your batteries and just get refocused and reenergized. You know? I think the trips are one thing, but, I mean, honestly, man, as we talk about our business and we talk about people out there in this industry, like, making sure that you have time freedom in your day to day, existence is is, I think, super important also. I mean, what what do you think? What what is time freedom, Tom? Like, it I always struggle with, like, how do we it's different for everybody, right, which makes it kinda cool, but what do you think it is?

What is time freedom? I mean, you know, I think what what people look at and and say what is time freedom is, man, how's that guy or that girl always doing something fun? How why am I grinding, and why are they here, there, able to time off? And I'm going vacation. I'm a I'm a slave, you know, to my business and my hotel room. I think people look at that, and they think that those people have, like, the freedom. You know? The the reality of it is is I think it's a little differently defined by everybody. In the other day, I think it comes down to this. You know? In your career, in your role, in your sales role, are you doing, you know, what you enjoy, what you're good at, and what makes money? And if that's where you're spending the vast majority of your time, I think you have freedom within your your job to do what you're destined to do and you enjoy doing. And for some reason, it always works out that when you spend your time on those things that make you money, it enables you to build teams and have freedom and be that guy that people don't understand how you take so many vacations.

Yeah. It's interesting to me. You know, I'd I say this often. Like, one of the best things about our job is you are in complete control of your time, and you can do it anywhere. Right? One of the worst things about our job is that you're in complete control of your time, and you can do it anyway. Like, it it never responsibility. Right? Yeah. Like, if you if you don't manage it effectively, if you don't set some of those boundaries that we talk about, if you don't use some of the blocking and tackling strategies we've talked about in the past with time management, it will run your life.

So, you know, what where I see people get really, you know, you you you see that perspective that you're talking about. This guy's always out on vacation, or this guy's never misses his kid's insert event. Right. But what you don't see is maybe that guy started his day at 4AM Right.

To make

I had to take the day off.

Mhmm.

So it's really cool that we have that, but it's also you have to be proactive with it and and, you know, plan accordingly.

I think that's a great point. Time freedom doesn't necessarily mean that your the the amount of work that you put in different is different. Right? I think it just means that you're able to to structure and schedule your day. You have the freedom to build it and structure it as you need to, and you can prioritize. And that's that's really what it all comes down to, right, is is what do you prioritize the most, and then you build around, you know, around that to support it.

So I'd actually want you to say you actually have to work more to to achieve it. You know? Because you have to work more effectively when you're working. You have to be able to know how to work in sprints. Like, you know, you you think about this mentality of, like, you can go to the gym and you can spend an hour and you can mess with your phone and you can have a conversation and you can kill time in between and grab five drinks of water and you're there an hour, but you worked out, like, twenty minutes.

Right.

You can also just stand up in your room with nothing but you on a floor and work out for twenty minutes, burpees, push ups, things like that, and you can get in more of a workout. So, you know, I I think it's how do you work when you're working. And what I know is the people that have freedom when they're working, they're working. They're effective. They're efficient. They're not time wasting. You know, I'm I've been that in the past. I mean, you know, I can I can definitely look back at times when when I did waste waste time and, you know, you almost lie to yourself about how you're spending your time quite quite honestly?

Yeah. I I think that brings us to, you know, a a a good segment to probably talk about because it is the, you know, the ability to to do it effectively really comes down to having some strategies and some rules built out around it. Right? And some, I think, there's some common kinda elements that we see play through this. Right? One thing that I always come back to is the eighty twenty rule. It always applies. I've never seen it not be applicable where 20% of what you do is going to generate 80% of your results. So as you start managing your time and you're working towards this time freedom, like, if if you can identify what that 20% is and then do more of that, that's more of that focused work, and you're gonna see better results. Right?

A %. It it was one of those things I just don't I I I don't know if I wanna say ever, but I almost feel like I could say never ever seen it fail, you know, when when somebody's true to it anyway. You know? Right. And that takes a lot too to just be true and honest to yourself and and, you know, not lie to yourself and and some level of commitment to self responsibility, discipline, tracking, things like that.

Yeah. I know one thing that's made you know, worked really well for me is I've focused more on this concept of time frame because I I was horrible at it. I think we've talked about this in the past. Like, I was the guy that my day ran me, and, you know, I didn't necessarily miss kids events. Like, I think that's the like, when I look at the levels of of, you know, where you can you can fail at this, like, if you start missing family and kids events, like, that's probably your biggest wake up call if you're out there doing that because that's time you can't get back. But I was the guy that worked, you know, seventy five, eighty hours a week, because that's what I thought I needed to do in the industry, and I didn't know any better. It's and I was just you know, I had this deep drive to be successful. Now looking back, I should have implemented some strategies and, you know, set some boundaries and and, frankly, started building a team and delegating task and leveraging team members way sooner than I did.

Mhmm.

Believe in yourself believe in yourself to do that.

Yeah. It's an investment. Right? It's a leap of faith. It it you know, it's it's also we talk with loan officers all the time. It's also tough because most of us are type a. Like, we wanna hold on to stuff. No one can do it as good as I can. Mhmm.

Right? And and, like, if you if you have that mindset out there and you're not leaning in and getting some of the stuff off your plate and delegating, you're never gonna grow to the point that you could. Yeah. You have to let go and and, you know, add increased capacity to really be able to scale.

And in the same sense, you know, for originators that, like you know, when you say I should have built that team, like, you're you're saying I should have started that when I was doing seven or so loans a month. You know? Yeah. Absolutely. Not from day one. Right?

Not from day one.

You know? So you know? But but from day one, you know, let's talk about that. You know? Because some people are thinking here like, oh, hire an assistant, he says. That's really easy. I don't have $5 to hire an assistant. I'm doing three loans. And if I hire an assistant, they're making more money than me. So some people think like that. So Right.

For them, it comes down to structure. You know, your calendar being your lifeline, you being, you know, honest and true to yourself. You know, we come from, you know, the Freedom Club. We coach the the the DSP. Like, that's the most way to be, you know, honest with your yourself. So if I'm a loan officer, I wanna get to that world of freedom. I would determine how much things do I need to do a week and where am I where in my calendar am I gonna do these things, and I would track my activity to doing those things. And that all leads to more business, more productivity.

Instead of taking that money in, start to invest into your growth at that point before you get too comfortable. You know, we even we have a good buddy yesterday text us. He's like, what did he he showed us a picture of that tracking form, and he's like, back to the basics. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And he's highly successful. A really, really good story of of freedom, but he gets grounded and and and circles back. And and he's doing that while he's having success, not while he's, you know, fallen down.

It was interest it was it was cool to get that text from him yesterday. What's some of the stuff that you see you know, what what are some of the traps? What are what are some of the things that kind of on a consistent basis we see that loan officers fall into that are a time suck and that are, counterproductive to to kinda this goal of time freedom?

I mean, you know, Facebook. I mean, you know, I mean, how

how great.

Simple little distractions that are out there. I mean, it's simple. I mean, how many hours a day? I mean, go to your phone right now and look at your productivity. Like, everybody can do that. Like, everybody can do that. Like, how did you spend your last twenty four hours on your phone? You know? And I bet you, most people say, damn. I coulda took those three hours back, and then what do you do with those three hours? You know? I think you know? Okay. So you scroll Facebook, but you're doing business.

So, you know, why are you scrolling? What are you intentionally scrolling Facebook? Are it what are you doing? Is it I'm scrolling Facebook because I'm going to engage with 10 people, or, you know, something like that? You you know? Or is it just you're just killing time. You're just killing time. Like, you know, create a diversion. You know? And I'm look. I'm the worst case of that. I have to literally eliminate the distractions. Like, when I started, like, being disciplined, the calling, I had to go to my car to do it because the phone the the my computer was there and people in the office. I go to get a drink, and next thing I know, fill my coffee cup, and I just spent fifteen minutes or, you know, or something popped up, and I get into an article.

And before you know it, it's like, oh, shit. Let me get back to my to my calls versus just a notepad and a list of names and I'm bang bang and and did exactly what I needed to do. I was used to hear you know, you guys make these 40 calls in two hours, and people are like, how the hell do you do it? And, like, I had to figure that out how to do it.

Yeah. And it's different for everybody. You you know, if you're out there and you're struggling with that, try some different techniques. Right? Tom said he went to his car. Me, when I'm doing my call days, I'm paper based. I don't even turn a computer on because the minute I turn that computer on, I'm sucked in, and I'm gonna be off in a tangent. I'm gonna look up, and two hours have gone by. And, you know, I've I've seen some really cool reels or videos and seen some funny jokes, but I haven't gotten anything done because I get distracted really easily.

Right? You know, the thing that I see a lot of people kinda fall into this trap on is they they don't set the boundaries. Like, it's okay. If you don't set boundaries, your day will run you. If you're not using some level of time block, if you're not, you know, doing something of of that nature, your day is gonna run you, and you're not gonna have the time set aside to do the things that we're talking about. It's okay to say no. It's okay to, you know, set aside a time to deal with customer questions and have a defined time. Everything doesn't have to be right now. And we we live in a society where that's kind of the the feeling and the mindset.

And then what happens is you're just constantly running from one issue to the next issue to the next issue, and you're never being proactive. You spend the entirety of your time being reactive. So, you know, it start small. Set set a small boundary, a small time block. Don't let anything interrupt it, and then just increase, from there. And you'll see your time freedom grow as you do it, I think.

Yeah. I I I couldn't agree more. You know, it's it's about, like you said, you know, you you have to be able to say no. You you have to be able to protect your time. You have to be able to, you know, make sure that the things you need to get accomplished are happening. You know? And everything else, like, that's how a a really easy way to measure whether you have a successful day. Like, a lot of things may have gone wrong, but if your daily goal is to do these things and you accomplish those things, well, it's just a part of the process. It's just one of those days that it was a good one, you know, or the bad one.

You know? But you still you still consistently do kinda what you need to do. I think that, you know, people, you know, avoid they get burnout because, like you said, it's, you know, either somebody's running the day. It's, you know, either you're running your day or your day's running you. You know? And and I think, you know, what people don't realize is, like, you can be in front of it. You know? You can go from a mindset of I answer my realtor, you know, my customer's calls every time they call to a mindset of my customers will never need to call me because I'm in front of the communication because I I do this. I don't need they're not gonna call me on Saturday because I talked to them yesterday in-depth, and I give them everything they need. And if I do, it's gonna be a real quick question, and I can knock that out. That's the thing, you know, being you know, it's it's reversing it from you know what all is going to happen.

So if you stay in front of it and do it before it just comes to you, like, I, you know, I think, you know, a customer wants to call and get an update on their loan on Friday. Like, they shouldn't be calling you get an update on your loan on Friday. You should have gave it to them at a certain time. You told them you were gonna give it to them, and then they were wowed by the fact that you delivered on that service. You know? It takes an active level of communicate of communication. It takes an enhanced level of communication to make sure that communication's happening in your control when you want it when you want it to happen.

That's a great point. You know? I think when you can be proactive and you apply these time freedoms, it really lends itself to a much better customer and referral partner experience. Right? You know, I think a lot of times the the thought is if I don't have scheduled time like, if I'm not reactive, if if I don't answer answer when they call or I don't answer that email right away or answer that text right away, I'm not given the level of service they're looking for. Well, no. If if you're proactive and you set the right expectations and then you fulfill them, they're not gonna have to reach out to you. Then you have a standard set of, you know, promises that you're keeping, and it's a much better, more enhanced client experience.

Mhmm.

So this can this can lead to client satisfaction. This this will help you, honestly, guys out there listening. If you do this and you nail it right and you're not frantic running from one thing to the next and you're you're proactive in running your day, you seem you're the professional. You're much more put together. Your referral partners will see that, and it doesn't lead to chaos and franticness in their day. They're gonna prefer to do business with you over the people who don't have this nailed down. So it can this is a this is a thing that not only will it help you with your family and your work life balance and those things, it can help you grow your business as well when you nail it down and do it right.

And so if it's everything that you do, it's it's, you know, it it's understanding priorities too. So, you know, if you're a loan officer, you have five applications in a day. Maybe two of them are trying to do something tomorrow, and and two of them are, like, hopeful thinking that they can do something in the new in this year ahead. And they're they're all at different levels. You know? Yeah. So, you know, if you've got five applications today, do you get back to the does the first one you get back to the first one that contacted you? No. You know? And you should have known when you're getting back to them. You should have said, hey.

I've got this time and this time and this time, which one of those works best for you and your your husband or your spouse and schedule that versus, getting you know, and just reaching out and going over it. And now you just spend time on this customer that the next customer actually was trying to make an offer that day, and they now called somebody else because you were working with the other two people. So it's really you know, it comes down to, like, working smart, and and that's when you're able to protect your time. You know, when when a customer calls and they're not trying to make an offer today, right, they wanna get qualified for a mortgage. Like, you want them to probably wanna use technology. Right? You you don't need to spend thirty minutes on an application. You can direct them to an application. You can have a follow-up system to make sure that they convert.

Yeah. I love that. I you know, one thing that I did somewhat early on in my career, and I think it helped with lead capture and retention. And it, you know, it kinda falls into what you're saying is I started working everything in segments instead of start to finish. Right? So you take that example where you get three leads in. I I didn't work lead one start to finish and then lead two start to finish and then lead three start to finish. What I would do is I would call leads one, two, and three and have an introductory call. Hey.

Got your got your lead in. You know, I'm gonna be working on it. What's your timeline? And then go to the second segment on all of them where maybe now I'm pulling credit. Right? And then the third segment is maybe now we're having a conversation about being prequalled, and the fourth is now we're chasing docs or, you know, whatever it is depending on the situation. But I see so often where, you know, just as you said, you you kinda our our business comes and ebbs and and and flows. Right? Ebbs and waves. So you'll how many loan officers out there are twiddling your thumbs on a Thursday, Friday, and then Monday, you're slammed with three or four leads? Mhmm. If you try to work them straight, you know, start to end, Well, whoever you're touching last is probably haven't heard from you.

Right? They may be gone. So you have to work them in kind of the segmented fashion to keep the communication on point. And that's really what it all comes down to, right, is making sure that you're communicating proactively, which comes back to the time freedom and time management that we're talking about. All this stuff goes hand in hand, guys. And when you can put it together in a comprehensive, cohesive platform, it works really well. You know, Tom, one thing that has helped, as as time has kinda, you know, marched on is the technology that's available to us today, the

tools that are out there. The customers wanna embrace it. It makes it easier for them. Their time spent saved. You know?

Yeah. Absolutely. And and it helps as a as a loan officer. It helps to, you know, 10 x. It gives you capacity. And I if I said it once, I said it a thousand times. Everything that we do in this business is capacity based. What are some of the the tools that you see out there? Anything that you recommend, resources, things that you're using that you just, you know, you think are kinda the cornerstone of, time freedom?

I guess every loan I mean, two things. You know, top two things, I think, are the point of sale. You know, that, a good strong point of sale, is, you know, gives you confidence to direct your customers through an application and get a more complete application. You have efficiency tools out there that can, you know, make things happen faster, easier for the customer. You have you have the ability to preset, you know, you know, preapproval letters for customer or agents to pull those down. Well, I'm gonna generate a preapproval letter on every scenario. So I think a point of sale is really, really important. And then a CRM, you know, as well from, you know, communication standpoint and, you know, what what is your outreach like? You know, you can multiply that through a CRM and the tools that are tied into it, text, email, phone, slide dial.

You know, these types of calls make you give you an ability to reach more people with the the same effort as it takes to to reach one so that, you know, that allows you to increase your contacts and, you know, in the time that you have to kinda do that. You know, your phone, you know, and task managers and reminders and your calendar. Like, I I don't know about you, man. Like, my whole life like, not just I don't use a calendar. My work calendar is, like, business. Like, everything in my life is is on that on that calendar, and, like, I'm I I look at it every single night, every morning, Sunday before, before, like, you know, moving that thing around. Is that lined up right? I've gotta fit this in. Where is it gonna go?

It's a simple the tool that the the tool that I would say is the calendar. Right? It like, it it's the cornerstone of time freedom and making sure you know, it it's what enables you to set boundaries. It's what enables you to be able to say the no's, to do the time blocking. You know? And I think you make a great point. I I do this. If you don't have, like, anything that is anything your in your life should should really be on that calendar. We we use a shared family calendar. So when there's a family event, it goes on there so the whole family sees it, but it cross pollinates to my work calendar.

So now I see that. So I've been that husband that Lacey said, hey. Don't forget. We've got ABC that she told me about two weeks earlier that I did forget that I had scheduled something over, and then I'm scrambling. Right? So when we when we put this kinda shared calendar in that comes into the work calendar, that goes away, and it's really it's a lot easier to prioritize the family things in your life

Yeah.

Which is which is powerful. Twenty five minutes in on, on time freedom. I know that it has, you know, drastically changed my life. I know it's changed your life in in kind of achieving that freedom. There are hundreds of stories out there of of Elos that, you know, did it one way and found a way to do it a different way and and the difference that it's made. You know, I I'd wanna hear from some of you guys out there that would listen to this. I I invite you to share your strategies, things that work for you, maybe even struggles that you have. You know, hit us up in the comments.

Let us know what you're seeing, what works, what doesn't work, what challenges are out there. We we like seeing the stories and the real world examples. I think I think back to one of our friends who, you know, he knew he had a a time freedom problem when he went to a theme park with his family. And he they got there, and he had to finish an email or finish a call. And he said, I'll be in in a few minutes. Go on, and I'll catch up to you. And long story short, they came back at the end of the day, and he had never left the car. He'd been in the car working the whole day.

And that wasn't the piece that really struck him. What really struck him is they weren't bothered by it because it because it was the norm and what they expected. And that was a catalyst for him to change his entire life. He changed his entire business and, you know, probably one of the most powerful stories out there that I've seen of not doing it right. It really impacting his family realizing it and then doing a complete one eighty and doing it right. Guys, this business will take as much of yourself and your family, and it'll take as much of, of any of that as you let it. So you gotta set your boundaries. You gotta protect those things.

You you can do it and have time freedom and be really freaking successful. I promise you.

So, you know, when when COVID hit, I mean, he was still a rookie, but really disciplined, did all the right things. And, you know, and and by by his second year first year in the business, I was able to hire an assistant, and and his his whole day's in in control, and his calendar's in control. He's tracking everything he's doing, and he has good workflows. And I would say, like, he's probably never seen, like, the really ugly side of this business because he hasn't allowed himself to.

Yeah. I don't disagree. Yeah. Guys, keep in mind that, you know, this is not an, an all or nothing thing either. Right? We talk about this in in so much of what we have discussed previously, time management, marketing activities. You know, a lot of times we get this mindset that it's it's all or nothing. And if if, you know, you can't do it all, you don't do any of it. That's not factual at all.

Start small. Take take a single step. Take action. You know, pick one piece of it and implement that and then move on from there. You know, baby steps will get you a long, long way. So one one other thing, I'm not sure if you saw this yet, Tom, but we have an LO who just went on vacation, and he sent us an email this morning. And he said, I just wanna say thank you to everyone, and, HMA team and family just got back from a much needed vacation and was able to really do it for the first time since I've probably been licensed because of the support and, you know, being able to set some of those boundaries. Like, I know for a lot of LOs, that's that seems like a pipe dream.

So if you if you struggle with that, if that's something that you're like, hey. That sounds like something that's really good. Start putting these little steps into place, and it won't be too long. And you'll look up, and you'll have massive results and be able to, you know, really unplug like Dave is in Hawaii right now. Still jealous.

It's a difference between the good to the good and the great too. I mean, you know, because the the sustainable great anyway. Because anybody had that greatness over, you know, short period of the time in this business, sustained greatness, It takes a lot of discipline, your, your actions, your activity, your calendar, protecting your time, you know, being in front of things, not reactive to things, but it's a beautiful life when you can come together. It's a really beautiful life and, you know, and and a wonderful thing that we do and, you know, get to make impactful, you know, impacts in people's lives and impacts in your own family's lives and control your schedule and be where you need to be. You know, I think we have one of the one of the greatest careers that that we could be in, really. You know? But it's it's tough. It it takes it takes a special person to do it right.

Gotta do it. Alright, y'all. Thanks for thanks for tuning in today. Don't forget to subscribe. Definitely hit that like button. Leave us a five star review. Share this episode. If you if you've got any value of it, share it out there, and, tag someone else in it to check it out.

Leave us some comments on what works for you, what you what you've got out of this, maybe strategies you're struggling with. We'd love to have some dialogue with you. For lending leadership with the mortgage pros, I'm Robert Fillyaw, Tom Mills. Thanks for joining us, Dave. Mahalo, buddy. We'll see you on the next one.