In a world full of noise, two giants decide to speak. Devin Dubuque, six foot four. John Hings Jr., six foot eight. Standing tall, thinking big. Real stories, real strategy. No fluff, no filter. From the trenches to the top, this is where mortgage pros come to great. Because when giants talk, you listen. Listen up because we're talking. What's going on, man? What's up, John? How are you, my brother? I'm great, Devin. How are you, man? man i gotta tell you i'm i feel like i got shot out of a cannon this morning part of that's because i got my supra out of the garage today and i might have gotten here in record time so nice nice i don't know what was in my coffee this morning but i was zoned in today for whatever reason but i saw it yeah we were on the cageless collars and man you know you get off and just you had a banner morning And the best part is, and I think it's a great reason to talk about because we're talking about burning out and how to fix it, is you were just out in the wild for the last couple of days. You weren't even behind the desk. No, no, I was out and about. Luckily, got a good team covering my butt. But Zeddy and I were out. Changing lives, I suppose. We were in Greensboro, North Carolina. Cool town, by the way. And Raleigh, North Carolina. Cool town as well. That was fun. We had a good time. That's good stuff. That's good stuff. Well, you know, the title of the show today is the real reason loan officers burn out and how to fix it. And I think, you know, I've been in the industry for, you know, twenty four years now. John, I think you're almost identical. You've got family ties to it, right? Yeah. Have you ever had burnout? No. Oh, I've had, I've, yeah, I've been burned and burned out and I've watched my dad get burned and burned out too. But yeah, burnout is a real thing, man. Real thing. I thought it was just part of it. Right. But there's a way around it. Yeah. Burnouts, burnouts for real. Uh, it's, it is a soul sucker. Yeah. Well, I've got to be honest with you, man. You know, I mean, I think a lot of people are really experiencing right now because it always happens when the market shifts. Right. It's funny because when the rates are, you know, in a place that people love them and, you know, businesses boom and man, we could probably work all day, all night long and not get burnt out. But it's when the market shifts that people really start to struggle and get stressed. Right. So, you know, you go back and I think a big one of those would have been, you know, the subprime crash back in like two thousand and six thousand seven, eight. Those are some really rough years. And, you know, we saw people exit the business. You know, I remember I was having a conversation with a guy who right now is killing it, by the way. And he's like, Devin, I don't think I can do this anymore. Not only is it, you know, we don't know what we can underwrite, but they're adding all these extra rules and making things more difficult. And he's like, man, I think I might need to get out of the business now. I'm going to call him out real quick because if he happens to catch us out. Ryan Grubbs, with your two hundred and ninety two funded loans last year, you still feeling that way, brother? Yeah. that's it that's it you know and i say that because at the time you know he was he was super frustrated and i had to remind him i'm like hey man you know remember all the great things this industry's brought us you know what other occupation could you have had where you had the opportunity to earn the type of income you have and enjoy the free time that you have uh outside of this industry um name it name it even if the bad times are bad because i think sometimes john we measure our performance by what we're doing right now which we should because we're in sales we forget to look at the historical history of what this industry has brought us right yeah very nice very nice life very nice very very very fortunate i think what comes with it though you know like you used to the whole lot of jay if you're just you know you know you're not hurting and you're not successful or there was one one speaker that we watched the other day i'm not going to name names but one that we watched where his whole premise was if you're not suffering you're not succeeding and i didn't believe in that i was just like that doesn't make sense to me Um, there's just too many ways to do this business without suffering. Um, but yeah, you know, burnout's a real thing. Um, it's a psychological drain on people, what it does to people's families, what it does to yourself. I mean, it's, it's full on depression. It is. You know, I think there's a choice where you're not changing your choosing and the choice to just keep chasing, chasing business, chasing numbers. That's what leads to burnout, in my opinion. I hope that's what we talk about today. I think that's what we're going to talk about. I think it's what we're going to talk about, too. You know, and I want to bring something up about speakers that we recently saw. And there was another one, you know, one of my personal mentors at Neil Dhingra, the Ford mastermind. And Neil got up and talked about the same thing. When he talked about it, you could feel the pain because he talked about the times that he missed with his family because of this industry and how much you could feel the devastation that he put himself through by not being there to support his family. But he said, man, I got tired of chasing and I had to learn a new way to do business so I can attract and get this time back so that I can be there for my family. we don't believe in it like we we've never been taught that we've been taught keep making calls who he who gets the most knows is the one that wins i used to say that all the time like whoever gets told no the most is usually the one that's going to win why is that you've asked the most questions and that means if you got the most knows you got the most questions asked that means you're creating more opportunities and yeah So in order to get that many no's, and let's be honest, a no, there is a physical reaction. There's an internal feeling of rejection that we go through and it hurts. And if you continue doing it over and over and over again, you're basically chasing that validation and you'll never get it. And, um, that's what leads to burnout mostly in my opinion. Um, and I think what I value Neil so much about when he said was like the law of attraction, just like, you know, attracting, and that's kind of what I'm learning, especially starting Cageless the way we did. I'm learning attraction is, is the method and how much fun you can have doing it. Well, so let's talk about that, right? So the burnout is a real thing. And I'll speak to that too, because I've been in this industry, you know, going for a long time as well. And I've definitely had pockets of my career where I was completely burnt out. Now, the hardest part about that, and I think you can speak from this level as well as a leader, right? Because I've always been in a leadership type role. You don't always get to show it, right? You could be completely burnt out, but you still have to show up for the people that you serve on a level that gives them guidance and them confidence. So you've almost got to have a torch and be like, hey, follow me. I know the way. But man, when you're struggling inside, sometimes that can be very difficult as well. Right now, you're just blocking and tackling for others, but you're suffering through the same thing. I mean, I get it. I get it. And sometimes you feel bad because you're lying because like you get on a sales call. Some of my loan officers are going to hear this right now. I want to be like, all right, guys. let's go let's go get it today and then like clicks over and you're like i don't want to do this shit today i've never done that before yeah it's one hundred percent the same thing man you know so you know i think you know what what was what leads to it right so yeah how do you transition how do you transition so like let's just say old john um old john would first of all old john would have a list of people that i want to work with right and i would go chase that list of people like i really want to work with this person i really want to work with this person and so on and so forth and when my perception really is as if if i get to work with this piece of person i'm going to be successful right and how do you reverse that part of it and that's the burn out there because you can if you haven't called this person eight weeks in a row then that's when you finally get the quick call them eight weeks in a row and i'm like if i call them eight weeks in a row and they kept telling me no for eight weeks they're gonna hate me no matter what and you know sometimes they give and yeah sometimes that theory works but what if you flipped it what if you put out a world of attraction and the people that like you come to you, well, then you've got something. That makes sense. Well, and I will challenge that a little bit because I do think, and again, I'm not saying that this is the only way. I think there's multiple ways to do it. I do think that now to avoid burnout, I think you're a hundred percent right, but there is a way to do it because there is something in the call, the follow-up consistently over time that one thing that we learn is that we build trust in people slowly over time by having them show up. right so effectively when you're doing the outreach call consistently over time the other party especially some of the top tier people out there they do gain respect for that because they go man you know what i remember when i was running fizz bows and like you know door knocking and getting the door slam on my face and it was tough to do that and this person is consistent every time and sometimes the person i'm working with is not right so okay i do think that method can work right but is it the right method and is it going to lead you to burnout i think you're right on the money i think it will What if it's a combination of both? Okay, so what if you're attracting, okay? I will use this for an example. So I was getting big on social media posts on doing advising things, right? Like I was out there educating. And I never really bought into the social media thing because in my mind, I kept going direct to consumer, direct to consumer. And that's not really true. You're really going direct to database. That's something we just kind of came up with this last little week was like, you're going direct to that database. I'm going somewhere with this, Devin. So, um, um, advising, advising, advising. So a baby agent, a new agent reaches out to me and her team lead was someone that I had thought I had wanted to work with for years and years, but they had a preferred lender and so forth. And I just kind of quit. after a while, but they're there at the agent that was on that team reached out to me. She says, I love your videos. Um, I want to learn more about, you know, this business. So took her to lunch. We learned a little bit more about the business. My video attracted the baby agent. She doesn't do a lot of business. Doesn't, you know, she just got into it, but she's going to, she's, she's very capable. She's The top agent, the one that runs the team, notices it. And all of a sudden, that was an introduction into that top agent. And now I'm working my way into working with that agent. And that was an agent I used to chase. And so I bet you now if I picked up the phone and called that agent, I would get a lunch, you know? Um, so I, I agree with you though. I do think that hustlers appreciate the hustle, but, um, I also think the hustle can lead leads to that a little bit of that burnout. And I think, yeah, I think there's a way to do it both, you know? i agree with you you know and at the end of the day i'm going to tell you a story it's i think a lot of the times that actually resonates so you know i've been in this industry for a long time but i wasn't really known in our marketplace i wasn't known in our circle just because i always stayed focused on my team the business i was running and that was really it now i always had losses would come work for me because they would always hear about this magical place right where people were treated fairly and they enjoyed the the the leadership and they actually liked the person they worked for and then all of a sudden i would have people that come work for me But when I got involved in the coaching program, they said, look, you know, you got to get out there and put yourself on social media. Now, what's funny, John, is that when I did it, I really did it to support my team, to show them the way. Hey, let me show you the way. Right. Like, I'm going to jump on and I'm going to do this. I can teach you how to use social media to build your marketplace and the people that you are looking to attract. And so I did a couple of things. Right. Number one. I hired a VA. And the reason I hired a VA is because I'm not likely to go in and friend request every single person that I want to friend request because in the back of my mind, I'll look at them like, I shouldn't hit the button, right? But if I hire a VA who can go in and click the button for me, they don't care. who that person is. If they are a loan officer, branch manager, it doesn't matter what company they work for, they're still just going to click the button because I told them, hey, go out and befriend all these particular people. So basically what ends up happening, and this is a great way to get the people that you want to attract to you to start seeing you visibly. It's funny, I had a similar conversation with Scott Hudspeth the other day. on how he built out his linkedin right and how he has has thirty thousand people that he's associated with in linkedin it was very similar he just went a little uh did a little bit on a higher level than i did and did it for a longer period of time uh by the way just full disclosure i didn't have any social media uh prior to i think it was four or five years ago because i didn't have any interest in being on it didn't want to do it so they went and they clicked the button to all these people now what i did was i was in a specific marketing a leadership program i said anybody that they're friends with as a branch manager or a lawn officer, I want you to friend all those people. Okay. And so then I started a consistent process of posting things online. Okay. Now what ends up happening, by the way, you're one of those people. So you probably got a friend because I don't know if you accepted it or not, but you probably did because we're friends right now. So what ends up happening is I start going to all these events and they're like, God, dude, I know you. I know that guy. Oh, he's me. Hey, man, thank you so much for everything you're doing. You're an inspiration to us all. I started hearing these things when I would go to these events. It was funny because these are people not just in my own backyard, but across the United States. Right. So this is what you're talking about. It doesn't have to be done on a national level. It can be done on a much smaller level to where you're working within your inside your community. And what you do is you go out and you friend request all the agents or brokers that you want to attract. But then you just start giving back. on social media for free with advice and ideas and opportunities. And you show up consistently over time. And all of a sudden, when there is an outreach, which is what you're talking about, whether it's through one of the junior agents or through the broker owner themselves, they already know who you are because you're contributing to the industry. And when you show up and say, hey, look, I'd love to show up. And, you know, teach your team something. You know, this is something that we're rolling out. We're seeing a lot of success with it. They're like, I already saw a lot of the stuff you're doing, John. I'd love for you to welcome you into the office. shit works, Devin. I'm not going to lie. I didn't, I didn't believe in it, but someone, someone else told me to do it. And I listened to her finally. And I did it. And it took, I'm not, I mean, it took a year for people to finally say to me, I love your videos, you know, but it was the consistency of it. And it was someone standing over my head, beating me. Now I'm like, I can't wait to do the next video because it really does work. Here's the thing about those social media videos is one. I love doing them. And I think I'm pretty funny sometimes on those things. And they do create relationships. And so, like, what you're talking about is not... those actions are not what gets you to a loan those are just actions that creates opportunities for relationships which will get you to a loan at some point and if you like doing those then double down on that and freaking make it your thing and that becomes your your your non-burnout phase right you know so we do the whole We do the whole thing like this is called the flight filter. So if we take a million of the things that we do as a loan officer, it has to go through three nests. And the first nest is if it can be deleted, get rid of it. And then the second nest is if it can be automated, do it. Automate it. And then if it can be delegated. do it and then eighty percent of your day needs to be the things that got through those three things so if meeting an agent face to face is not delegated which it shouldn't be because it's your business and it's not automated and it's not deleted that's what you do but if uh chasing conditions like i need page three if that can be delegated You're not doing it. So that's one way to avoid burnout there is because now what you're doing is you've chosen something that you love doing, that you like doing. I mean, that you like or love doing. You're good at it and it creates relationships. If you woke up every single day and eighty percent of your day was doing those things, how in the hell are you going to burn out? Now, the other thing is, is like, let's identify those things that we love doing. You know, so like if you say cold call for me, I delete it. I don't even cold call anymore. Run. But I do cool call. Yeah. So I'll call someone I don't know, but I better have a reason to call them. So I'll cool call. Those are fun. So like the old rule of me is like what part of my burnout was I would pick up the phone. And I would be nervous and I would be scared and I'd be anxious. And the reason why I was nervous, scared or anxious is because I was calling for I was wanting something. Yeah. And therefore I was calling for the wrong reason. Now, when I pick up the phone, sure, you're going to want to hear from me. I got something cool to tell you. You know, and now my phone calls different and hell, I don't even make the calls anymore. Now I'm receiving the calls because I'm, you know, I'm out there, you know, it's kind of, so yeah, it's just, you know, that's what I think a lot of loan officers is a lot of that old school thinking definitely worked, worked for a long time, man. And, um, but one, I think agents are onto it. And then two, I think we're just exhausted. Yeah. Well, I think there's more than that, John. I think agents are onto it. I think more importantly, there's great loan officers left in the industry. We've gotten rid of a lot of the really bad ones. So at the end of the day, at the end of the day, their loan officers are probably reaching out and doing the right things, right? For the most part, we're not saying all right, but we're saying for the most part. Now I want to go backwards a little bit because I think this goes really deep into the burnout thing. So you talked about, when you would pick up the phone and you would get that pit in your stomach and feel anxious, how'd that call go by the way, if they did answer. Yeah. Terrible. They read it. They read it right. Oh, you want awkward, awkward, you know? Yeah, exactly. So you mentioned cool call and this is why I wanted to put one up. So what is, so what is it that you're calling to talk about that turns it into a cool call? Like where, where is that coming up? Where do you, Well, the loan officers that are left, we have a world of knowledge to share. And, you know, it's not just products and rates and all the things about mortgages. We know how to run a business. We know how to stay in business. And we've been successful entrepreneurs for a while. People want to know about that. People want to know how to run a business. So, um, created classes. Um, one of the things I love to do, one of the things I am good at, and one of the things that creates relationships is I love teaching. Um, I was actually a teacher for a year. I don't know if you knew that or not, but, um, yeah, I was a teacher for one year. Yep. One year high school kids couldn't do it. Yeah. They scared the six foot eight giant out the door. I'll hang till the end of the year, but after that I'm out. Um, but no, like I love, I love teaching and, um, you know, that's something I've decided to try to double down. So when I have classes, um, I will call a BIC or I will call a team lead or I will call a baby agent and say, hey, I think you need to learn a little bit about this. And then they'll tell the other people on their team and I'll ask them to invite someone and then I'll fill a classroom with fifteen people. And there you go. and now i'm doing that for my loan officers too so yeah well then you show up on a thursday or i guess it was friday right you hadn't made a call all week and you pick up the phone and all of a sudden you got seven opportunities uh within a one and a half hour window because yeah you're you're contributing you're giving something back to the people that actually need it they're thirsty right they're thirsty for knowledge uh because a lot of the times even if the broker owner wants to they just don't have the time or the bandwidth to provide all the training and when they've got a a person like yourself that's willing to go out there and help their agents man it really feels good it's like man this is a contributing partner they actually care about not just my agent they care about my business because my agents are my business right yeah well you just said feel good i mean you avoid burnout feel good make sure you feel good when you do the things that you want to do if it doesn't feel good you're going to burn yourself out and just don't do the things that don't feel good do the things that feel good And that's kind of what we really try to push now is if you do things that feel good, one, you're going to do them twice as much and you're going to do them twice with more heart and people will take notice of that. And some things work, some things don't, but at least you're doing it. When you hate doing things, most of the time you just end up not doing it. So whenever you block time and you're protecting time to do something, these relationship building activities and notice how i say relationship building activities not money making activities because when you chase money that's exhausting and that's burnout but when you chase when you look for relationships or attract relationships it's not so basically when i wake up every yeah when i wake up every day i'm like how many friends can i attract today Well, you know, I love that you said that, man, about loving the things that you do, because that's one thing that I preach all the time. If you're not loving the ride, you're doing the wrong thing. And I don't care if you're listening to this and you're in mortgage or real estate or if you're in an industry that's completely different. By the way, you can change at any time. You have that ability. I've done it and you can do it, too. You just have to draw a line in the stand and make a non-negotiable and say, I'm going to change. And if you're sitting here listening right now and you're like, no, I can't do that bullshit. You can. There's knowledge everywhere. If there's something that you truly want to learn how to do, you can find it. You're right here on a podcast on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. There's podcasts like this going on all the time about whatever it is that you love, get out there and freaking do it. And I'm not saying that. And if you're a law officer and you're like, dude, I am burnout and none of the stuff you're talking about relates to me and I can't do any of that stuff, get out. Go find something different, right? But what we're talking about is how can you take those qualities that you hate and turn them into things that you love? You know, something that I did earlier today, you may have gotten one. I actually know you did. It's a video, right? Yes, dude. That was cool, man. I love that. Thank you. Yes. I feel good. Yeah. Well, dude, I saw your energy because we were on a video call and I sent the video to you. And then all of a sudden I saw your animation go up when you were talking to the people that you were out there talking to. and i felt better right like i felt great too it made me want to reach out to more people and spread that positivity so think about that you know the people that are in your network the agents that you do work with or the the financial planners or the business partners you have out there maybe just take a power hour and shoot a quick thank you video for being a friend for being a part of your world and send that to them right that's going to make you feel pretty good and john how to make you feel man Amazing. Amazing. So when you sent me that video, that's when I decided to send videos to all the people that attended the workshops on Wednesday and Thursday. And I just busted out like eight videos in a row. And I loved doing it because every single person I send a video to, like it was pretty damn authentic and it felt really good because I let them know how much it meant to me that they showed up. And that was really cool. And, you know, those are the type of things that are are they move mountains you know a hundred percent it does and and it takes you away from the chase right and it turns you into an attraction because if you just reach out to say hey i don't want anything from you you know i just want you to know how awesome you are and how much i appreciate our friendship or relationship and man just man i love what we're doing together and i just want us to keep going together man let's do this stuff right yeah It's a great way to build a relationship and let them know that it's not just about the dollar and the paycheck. And man, you feel good when you get done doing that as well. So stop chasing the things that you hate and start doing the things that you love. And I think that's really what we're talking about here. And more importantly, John, you really broke it down well, is automate the things that can be automated. delegate the things that can be delegated, delete the things that you absolutely hate doing, and focus on the part of the industry that you love. And then, you know, I know for a fact just a week ago, you were on Thursday right after we prerecorded the show. By the way, last Friday's show was prerecorded. This one's not. I'm answering the chat as we talk right now. But you were in a car with your family on your way where, man? Where were you guys going? Oh, so, you know, we did mortgage con and at universal and, um, you know, um, it's really hard to call your kids from Orlando and say, Hey, I got Harry Potter world all to myself. And I got to ride Hagrid three times in a row with no line, come home. And then they go like, good to see you, dad, you know, good for you. And then you're kind of like feel guilty and you're like, Oh yeah. you didn't know I was actually taking you down there next weekend. And then, you know, they're like, really? And I'm like, sure. And you're buying tickets at the same time. So, um, yeah, man, uh, it was one of those weird weekends where we had the four days or whatever. And we left on a Thursday and, uh, we had three epic day or two epic days because it's epic universe. And then that place is bonkers, man. yeah i haven't been yet so yeah i'm definitely gonna be taking the kids sometime in a a visit coming soon so yeah uh yeah i don't advocate drugs at all when i say this but you can actually go to epic universe and walk in the mario world and it will feel like your own shrooms because it looks like you're in a cartoon and i was i was like so you don't actually have to take drugs you can just go to epic universe and it's true there because every you got floating coins everywhere and mushrooms popping up and down you're just like what the heck is going on here this place is unbelievable it's really cool man yeah hard to believe humans make things like that it's really cool that's it well you know we talk about doing things you love so there's something you love you know you work really hard but you make sure you take time to be there to support your family and your loved ones so that you can be present and in the moment And that's super important. And that's one of the things that we want to talk about here, too, is like if you're feeling burnt out on a day, take a break. Even if you're like, man, I can't take a break. Take a break because you're not going to be at your best when you're not at your best. Right. And you can't help people at the level they deserve to be helped if you're not your best. So I literally, you know, and I struggle with this because, man, I'm a workaholic. I just am. but you know sometimes you just have to say you know what i'm gonna walk outside and you know maybe i'm gonna take a quick drive and go do something for myself uh so that when you come back and you sit down you're better prepared to help somebody you know i heard somebody talking about that earlier this year uh it was actually in the ford mastermind uh and the guy you know literally said he'll just take the entire day and he'll say hey look team i'm gonna take off and i'm gonna go spend a little time with myself so i can come back tomorrow and do better Two things. One, your team should understand that. Your team should know that as long as that person that's leading that team is, whether it's thirty hours a week or forty hours a week, if they're working thirty hours a week super hard and going full on and making things happen compared to forty hours a week of being half-assed because they're burned out, I'll take the thirty hour a week guy or gal that's just pulling in. And you ever notice how like your phone sometimes when you're on your phone and just things start freezing and they're not going from app to app, get all this stuff going on. What's the one thing you do to your phone or your laptop when everything starts freezing? You turn it off and you unplug it and then you plug it back in and you reboot it. It's the same thing for us as humans because we start missing things. We start freaking out. We start getting stressed out. So the best way to turn off is one is to turn off your phone and turn off your laptop and just clear your head, go away. And you just said like walking outside. It's amazing when a thirty minute walk outside with no no distractions, what it'll do for you. You'll come back and you're recharged. And if you start feeling that burnout, that pit in your stomach or you start putting things off or you start procrastinating, those are the burnout signs right there, man. Yeah. Well, guys, I think we're going to leave it at that today. Any closing words, John, before we wrap up? No, man. Just like if an old dog like me can do it, you can too. Yeah. Same. Same. Since we're literally the same old. Yeah. Same old. Four days apart. You're my big brother. Well, you're the bigger big brother. You know, it's funny how the one that was born after is always just a little bit bigger, right? That's right. That's right. He took the scraps on the way out. That's it, man. That's it. Well, guys, again, we appreciate you so much for tuning in. Keep coming back every single Friday, one o'clock central, two o'clock Eastern. We're going to be right here. We're reviewing this right now. And man, you know, I don't know, man. Just. Stay positive. Focus on the things that you love. Get yourself out of the business if you're struggling for just a little bit of time. And just go reset and think about the stuff that we talked about today. And how can you hand some of those things off? How can you automate some of those things? And how can you focus on doing things that you love so you stop chasing and you start attracting? Awesome. All right, guys. Appreciate you. We will see you next week. Until then, we're your mortgage giants. I'm Devin Dubuque. John Inks we'll see you on the next one