Today on the Heath Barnes show, we’re speaking with Loan Officer and Branch Manager at Preferred Rate, Chris Haynes.
Before joining Preferred, Chris had spent 16 years with the same organization, and in need of a change, he decided to make a transition to a different mortgage company. We had a great conversation about that process and his steps to vet other companies and questions one should consider before making a move.
With his many years of industry experience, Chris also shares that many coaches such as Tony Robbins and the Core have helped influence his life and helped him set and achieve his personal goals.
Before joining Preferred, Chris had spent 16 years with the same organization, and in need of a change, he decided to make a transition to a different mortgage company. We had a great conversation about that process and his steps to vet other companies before making a move.
He has a lot of experience, and as well as talking about his approach to moving, we started off talking about Chris’s experience with Tony Robbins.
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Listen to the podcast here
Decisions Vs. Choices: Transitioning Mortgage Companies With Chris Haynes
My special guest is a loan officer, Mr. Chris Haynes. How are you doing, Chris?
I’m doing awesome. How are you? Thanks for having me.
I’m better than I deserve. Thanks for being in here. For those of you who haven’t heard of Mr. Chris Haynes. He’s out of Nashville, Tennessee. He and I worked together at People’s Home Equity. He went to a Preferred Rate and made them move. One of the things we are going to cover is what you think about when you are changing companies if you are a loan officer.
Before we get to that, I got to share something with the audience a couple of unique things about Chris Haynes. Chris and I worked or coached together at a coaching platform a couple of years ago. One thing Chris was known for was that the guy gave away more money than any of the other coaches like 20% of his income.
I acknowledged Chris for that but the thing that I acknowledged about Chris is that he’s the guy who, when he hears something, takes action. Soon into our coaching career, he called me one day and said, “Heath, tell me about Tony Robbins.” I had come back from Date With Destiny maybe a couple of months before.
You are the one person that I’ve ever come across who has asked me about Date With Destiny and then immediately signed up, which is the thing that I did. I’m curious. Let’s start with that because those who are reading maybe have never been to a Tony event. I want to know where you got that characteristic about yourself that makes you take action. For most successful people that have tasted some level of success, that’s important. Talk about that decision.
It goes back to being super competitive and always having a coach. From a young age, my dad was my coach. I learned over time that if you want to get somewhere, the fastest way to get there is to learn from somebody who’s already there. If I want to learn how to close 15 loans a month, I don’t ask the guy closing 3. I asked the guy who closes 30 because he knows how to get 15 going into our industry.
Going into the coaching program that I was in, I remember 2011 was when I decided to join. For those that are in the business in 2011, it’s a totally different market. Everything got crashed and was starting to come back up. They changed comp. Everybody was worried, “We are not going to be able to make any money because there’s this comp rule,” GFE had changed in 2010 to the loan estimate, and all this crazy stuff was going on. I remember, at the time, I was 31 and had been in the business for a few years. I had my own little small branch with three employees, including me. I decided to take that leap and spend $2,000 a month as an investment in my business, and it was a big deal at the time.
What year was that?
It was May 2011. I still remember the trip, sitting there at the table saying, “Am I going to do this? I’m going to spend $24,000 a year to be coached. This is crazy.” Once I commit to something, and it’s the decision I make, I will make the decision and jump and do it.
How do you know it’s the right decision for you? How do you go through that process?
When your gut is telling you it’s is an opportunity to take the next step, that's usually the right decision. Click To TweetI don’t think you ever know for sure anything but I trusted my gut. When my gut tells me, “This is right.” I’m going to trust it because what happens, in my opinion, a lot of people out-think their gut. They have all the reasons, “This is that. I shouldn’t do it here. This is a risk.” Your gut is your heart. When your gut is telling you, “This is an opportunity to take the next step,” that’s usually the right decision. Your gut usually doesn’t lead you in the wrong direction.
Doing that tripled my business in 2012. In 2014, I became a coach. Heath was already a coach, and I had been a coach for a few years. I remember the conversation, and it was 2018 when I talked to you about Tony Robbins. To share real quick about the story, I can’t remember how it came up on the phone but it was about June of 2018. Heath is like, “You got to try Tony Robbins. He’s the best thing for personal growth that you can do.” I’m always looking for personal growth. If somebody like Heath, who I respect and successful, “If this guy is getting a lot of benefit out of it, he says it’s one of the best events he’s ever done. I will try it.” If you go to Date With Destiny, it will change your life but if you are married, make sure your spouse goes with you.
That is super important.
It’s a big event. It’s six days that you don’t want to come home with some new realizations, and your spouse looks at you like you are an alien or something like that. I talked to my wife, “Would you be willing to do this? I heard it’s really good. It’s not until December.” My wife was like, “It’s six months out. Sure, whatever.” I went ahead, signed up, and paid, so we are going.
Long story short, the time came, and my wife didn’t want to go. She was like, “We are busy. We got kids. I got to this.” She is a packer and likes to plan. She usually has everything packed four days ahead of time in the bags. We’ve packed that morning. We went on a Date With Destiny. She was not happy the first day. By day four, she was telling me that I needed to sign up for a platinum package where you can do all the events. She texted me, saying, “You need to do the package. This is awesome.”
I remember you sitting next to me and were like, “I’m going to go check out the platinum.” We’ve already paid $5,000 or $10,000 to come to this event for six days. It’s either the 1st day or 2nd day, and we are back there talking to this guy. They were like, “You can sign up right now and pay X amount of dollars and get to experience the platinum feeling like sitting in the front of all the events.”
You can go up to twenty events a year, which nobody can do all of them but you get the opportunity to attend all the events within your fee. I remember talking to you, “I’m going to do it.” Heath was like, “I’m going to wait until June or something,” whatever. You had something going on. I said, “Let’s do it now.” We both put our deposits down, and then we jumped in. It was one of the best years. In 2019, Melissa, my wife, did it with me. We did 10 together and 1 that she couldn’t attend because of personal stuff at home with kids but we did 10 or 11 events together in 2019.
Talking about personal growth, if anybody that’s on this and they are here to learn and grow, check out Tony Robbins. One of the best experiences, and it’s great for your business, personal relationships, and for you to grow but Tony has been a great experience. I’m going to an event. It’s a relationship-based event. It’s all about you and your spouse. It’s enjoyable.
The initial event is called value UPW, Unleash the Power Within, and that’s about three days, and then there’s Date With Destiny. He’s having one coming up. In 2022 go to Unleash the Power Within or Date With Destiny. It’s six intense days if you want to figure out what’s your direction in life and have a better understanding of yourself and other people. On my first Date With Destiny, I didn’t show up in the world, and I was a little bit nervous about everyone because you understand how people think when we do the things we do. It took away the nervousness of being around people for me.
What I love about you is that you are like me. You hear the way the person tells it to you, and I’m the same way. That’s why we connected. A lot of people hear it, and then their brain starts saying, “How much is it?” Your brain starts protecting you and thinking, “Do I need this? Is there something wrong with you?” I always like to jump in and see what happens.
We always survive it. Even if you make a mistake, you will learn from the mistake and be okay. There’s never any failure. It’s just mistakes and learning. That’s what I think.
The difference between making a decision and a choice is, “I’m going to go.” A decision is, “I’m not going to go.” A decision is that you are thinking too much. You made a change, and it surprised almost everyone in the industry after being with People’s Home Equity, for how long?
It was from ’04 to ’20, so it has been several years since I was there. I never had a different experience.
Chris is an originating loan officer who runs a big branch, do millions of dollars in business, and is one of the leaders in the industry but it’s a total surprise to everyone. For the people that are reading, if you are a loan officer and thinking about changing companies, what’s that thought process looks like? I want people to get a good understanding of if you are at a company and you want to make a change, number one, what should they be thinking and how could they prepare? Maybe why they shouldn’t either change or not change because it’s a hard decision for most loan officers. Most loan officers, you have a bad day or two, and somebody calls you, get a good feeling, and make a change.
First of all, being a coach for a couple of years and coaching lots of different students, I always encourage anyone thinking about changing to try to work it out where you are. The grass isn’t always greener. Do that, and I did. I’d never want to talk badly about People’s Home Equity because I love the ownership and the people that I worked with for several years. There’s nothing negative that I will ever say about any of that but try to work it out where it is.
If you feel like you and that company aren’t in alignment, and you usually have to make a change, it needs to be a cultural change or an alignment change. As loan officers, the main thing that loan officers lack is a leader or a mentor. If you are at a company that they are not closing your loans on time, you don’t have a mentor that’s telling you, “This is what I did when I was a few years in the business. When I was closing 6 loans a month, this is how you go to 9,” so you get assistance. The biggest thing for loan officers is they’ve got to attach themselves to somebody that’s going to mentor and coach them. If you have a loan officer who is going to join you, you are immediately going to be coaching that loan officer to grow their business.
Are you saying that if you are the top loan officer where you are, it’s going to be hard for you to compete? That would be a reason.
If you are the top loan officer where you are, you are doing well. For that loan officer, they are going to move for cultural or lack of leadership reasons. For loan officers that are maybe not the top one loan officer there, they’re trying to figure out their way. The main thing that most loan officers lack is a top-producing mentor because we all have top producers in our company but as you said, our top producers are not coaching.
For me, I’m thankfully very blessed to be a good producing Branch Manager but my passion is coaching my loan officers. I coach all my loan officers in my office. I give them the scripts that work, “When you get to this point, we are going to hire you an assistant. This is what that assist does for you. Here’s how you run your daily team meeting. Here’s your next step.” I love compacting.
When I got into the business in ’04, the industry went through some craziness until 2015. It was a lot of heartache. I don’t know about you but I went through a lot of heartaches, bad hires, and trying to figure out how to go from 3 to 8 people to 15 people. Now, we are at 40 plus, and for a loan officer, they were at the same place I was years ago and trying to contract that time from, “This is a five-year learning curve. Let’s make it a twelve-month learning curve. Let’s get you an assistant. You are doing twelve 12 a month in a year from 5 loans now. If you are doing 10, let’s get you to 20. How do we do that?” That’s what you and I enjoy.
The beauty of our business is that as a loan officer, you're running your own business. You run it like a true business, make a bunch of money, and have a life outside of work. Very few people ever get there, though. Click To TweetMake sure that if you are moving to a place that you are going, it aligns with you culturally and operationally. If you are a loan officer wanting to grow your business, you need to have some type of mentor or get coaching. There are great coaching programs out there. I’m not going to mention names but there are several different places you can get coached. You have to be mentored and coached or you won’t grow as fast. You will probably get to where you want to be but it may take a while. Your coach will get you there quicker.
If you are out there reading this, I don’t know if you have experienced this. It doesn’t sound like you did but I remember the first couple of years of being in business. I didn’t want anyone telling me what to do. I want to do it on my own. I finally realized, “I don’t know what I’m doing. Let me find somebody that does.” That’s the greatest change for me personally. I don’t care to be the original person. I’m going to follow someone that’s doing it better than me. I want to make my life a lot easier.
Find someone or an organization that can mentor you that also fits with your values. You were talking about the value that if you are going to switch companies, it shouldn’t be because you are going to make more money. If you are going to leave for more money, you will always leave for more money. It should fit from a leadership stance and a value stance. Also, having someone that you can go to that can help you with your problems when they come up.
If they’ve gone through and hit all the potholes, I can tell you, “There’s a pothole right here. Let’s avoid that.” You can get there much quicker. As you said, if you leave for money, who cares? Where you make money in this business is by doing more business. I’ve heard it said, “Do you want 100% percent of a grape or 50% of a watermelon?” Don’t worry about your comp plan. Worry about your total comp.
If you go to a company with a great culture and operations, you can now grow your business. You can go from 5 to 10 to 20 loans a month. I don’t care what your comp is at five loans a month. If you are doing twenty loans a month, you are making a whole lot more money. That’s where you want to be. Also, get it to where it runs smoothly, where you can have a life.
Is that possible?
Yes. In our business, it can be hard. That’s one of the biggest things that I took away from being around Tony, and I’ve had other coaches and mentors that have helped me with this too but Tony always talks about, “Do you want to be a business operator or business owner?” I was a business operator, and I’m still working as an operator in some facets of the business. As a loan officer, you can work 60, 70, to 80 hours a week and spin your wheels or build a great team with great systems and work 40 hours a week and close a lot of business. Become an owner where you can work ten hours a week or take a month off to take a vacation, and your business can still run.
That’s the difference between being a business operator and a business owner. If you are an owner, your business will run and be profitable in your absence. I’m not trying ever to be an absentee owner that takes off three months because I would be bored out of my mind but I like to be able to step away for a Friday or a week and not have everything crumble. It used to feel like you take a vacation, come back on Monday, I’m like, “Why did I even leave? It’s worse now than when I left.”
I don’t know if I shared this with you. I have been running a branch since I got into the business but made the decision, “I’m done running a branch. I’m not that good at it.” I looked at the mirror and like, “You suck.” I’m great at originating with clients and with agents but from an operational standpoint, I suck. I’ve made a deal with somebody else in my company to come in and run my branch.
If you want to be a branch manager, understand, “What’s your vision? Why do you want to do it?” You got to want to help people. I want to help people but I’m not that good at it. I’m going to be an originator with a larger team but as you said, I want to be a business owner. I will still be operating the team. You can be a business owner for a large team or a branch manager.
That’s a very important distinction. Some people are like, “I got to run the branch to be a business owner. I got to own the company. I’ve got to open my own brokerage to be a business owner.” You don’t. You can be a loan officer with one assistant. You cannot be a loan officer with no assistance and be a business owner. You don’t have anybody to help you but with one assistant, you can start to become more of a business owner with a team and train your team with systems to run while you are gone and be a business owner.
As you said, it doesn’t matter what position you are in, and that’s the beauty of our business. As a loan officer, you are running your own business. You can do a bunch of business, make a bunch of money, and run it like a true business and have a life outside of work. Very few people ever get there, though. We see it. The trap they fall into is they do more business, working 60 hours a week, and then they get addicted to that and want to do more business. Even when they hire more people, they keep working at 60 hours a week at the expense of time with family and things like that. We focus on controlling that, making sure that you are getting home, and taking care of the family at the house.
For a lot of people, they think they have this badge of honor when they are working, “I’m grinding it out. I’m working 60 hours a week. There’s not a minute in my schedule.” A lot of that has to do with either your ego or how you are showing up. Why do you need to work 60 hours a week? What do you prove to yourself? What’s it costing you?
That’s one of the reasons I made that decision. “I want to work less. I’m 51 years old. I would rather spend more time coaching and mentoring than building something that I sucked at.” It’s tough. You are able to make the decision to understand why you are making those decisions. Who are the people that you called before changing companies?
Number one, I talked to multiple places before I ever made a move. I did try to see if I can make it more in alignment with where I was for a long time. It went down that path. I had multiple conversations with people from the company I’m at, Preferred Rate, because I want to make sure they are in alignment. I don’t want one guy telling me one thing, and then the head of operations, underwriting, and finance all need to sound the same and have the same story. It’s not one conversation. It’s multiple conversations. You are taking notes, and you get that feel for them.
Once I had narrowed down a couple of places, I called branch managers. A couple of the guys were guys that I knew personally, being in The CORE, I know people all over the country. A couple of guys were people that I didn’t know. I called them and said, “This is what they are telling me. Tell me about your experience. How was it?” I asked them a bunch of questions. I want to get a third party non-biased and make sure.
In our business, Heath, and you know this, there are some smoke and mirrors that can be thrown up there. You got the recruiting, “This is our brochure,” and then when you get here, it can be different. The guys had been there 6 months, 6 years or whatever, they were experiencing the sales pitch. It’s not always that way. Being in coaching, I saw guys that would get recruited, and then a couple of months later, “It’s not exactly what they said on my pricing, and this is different, and that’s different.”
You got to make sure that you are doing your due diligence in that way because if you don’t, once you move, you don’t want to move again. It’s hard to move. Do that due diligence. Everybody that I talked to said, “It’s exactly like they are telling you. They deliver on operations, and a lot of big things are operations. I wanted to close my loans.”
What were the top three things you were looking for?
Number one is operations.
If you're not skinning your knee every now and then, you're not running fast enough. Click To TweetWhen you say operations, what do you mean?
I close my loans on time. If I need to close in two weeks, I can, 24-hour turn times, and underwriting, that stuff. Operations like getting loans closed. If you can’t close your loans, who cares what your rates are or how good of a salesperson you are? If you don’t close at the end, that’s a big deal.
It is no fun if you can’t close at the end.
That’s the main thing. I feel like if you are a branch manager, I’m pretty much self-contained outside of underwriting, funding, and stuff. I have my own closers and processors. I have all that. Our operations are a lot to do with us but underwriting is a big deal. How quickly are they doing it? Do they understand what’s going on with sticky files? As a Branch Manager, you have to look and make sure the financials make sense, and then culturally, I’m not going ever to join guys that I don’t align with on culture and values.
There are business loan officers that do a lot of business but maybe don’t have the best reputation for being a nice guy or fun to work with. They treat their processors wrong. I would never recruit that person into my organization because that one person could upset the entire apple cart out here in my office. You got to make sure that you are around people that are culturally a good fit for you.
You said if you can make it work where you are at, make it work but if you need to change, make a change. Trying to make it work, what does that look like?
It’s a little bit sticky when you are making a move or thinking about making a move. You need to go to them and tell them, “These are the areas that I’m having trouble in. I’m having trouble with operations, underwriting,” or with whatever your problems are. “This is what I need to fix,” and give them opportunities to fix it.
I would never threaten. I’m not going to say, “If this doesn’t get fixed, I’m leaving.” That’s not going to work. Giving them that opportunity and saying, “I’m a loyal person. I have been here for a long time. I need these things to change,” and if they don’t change or you don’t see that the organization has the ability to change them that’s maybe when you would make that move.
I was going to say in the last point that when you do move, you are going to have a few months of pain. A move is not fun. It sucks. You got to learn new systems, all the licensing, the internet’s got to get switched, the contracts, and the leases. It is what it is. I tell everybody to expect 90 days of pain, and the bigger your organization, the more pain you are going to experience because you have more people, and more people equal more change, influx or whatever you want to call it.
If you are a loan officer making a move, whether you are an entire branch or region, once you make that decision, my opinion is to rip the Band-Aid off. It was like when I decided I was going to do Tony Robbins. I make a decision, and my life is going in this direction at full speed. Rip the Band-Aid off, make your decision, and move quickly.
I’ve heard of and seen branches like, “I’m going to move slowly.” Move as fast as you can. With us, we had to leave half of our processors back to close our pipeline. It was a longer transition because we had a bunch of loans in the pipeline but once we got everything closed, we wanted to move as fast as possible to keep the pain as short as we can. The longer you drag it out, the more pain you have.
Often when people are thinking about leaving they are scared of what’s going to happen because they are afraid. Maybe they are not going to get their money or make it difficult. If there’s an easy process of setting up an appointment with your branch manager, area vice president, or the owner of the company and say, “I’ve got a few things that have been an issue for me. You seem the person that wants to make sure your employees are happy. I like to go over this with you.” Set up that meeting and go over these items so they are clear that what your issue is.
You go over those items and confirm with your manager, boss or owner, “Are these valid reasons for me to be upset?” A valuable lesson is this don’t ever tell what you can ask. Let’s say underwriting term times are four days. You meet with your manager and say, “Underwriting turn times are four days, is that what should be expected because what I see in the industry, it’s 24 hours?”
Set up another meeting in another month to check and make sure that those things have been corrected but give your company a chance to make things right. Make sure they hear what you are saying. I don’t think anyone wants to lose people. It’s tough, and then the last thing is to ask yourself, what are you responsible for? If there’s a problem that your company is having, I’m sure you hold some responsibility for that problem.
That’s like in your relationship. When you are not getting along with your wife, there’s a problem. Maybe there are some on both sides but you are part of the problem.
When you are having that conversation with your boss or even your wife, “A couple of things I want to go over with you. These are some issues that I’m having. Let me first start and say, these are the things that I’m responsible for. I’m curious. What are you responsible for in this?”
Let’s say you are a very sloppy loan officer. That happens. You don’t put together good files. You have pre-approved people, and here’s your letter. You changing companies and throwing crap against the wall are not going to fix that. You have to make sure that you are doing your part to make sure that you are not most of the problem. It’s what we learned in some of the relationships stuff. Some people go from relationship to relationship. The problem is that they are taking themselves with them.
They are the problem in all relationships. That’s why they go from relationship to relationship. You got to look inwardly, change yourself, and be the right relationship partner, loan officer or branch manager. Make sure you are doing the right things, and then if the partnership is not right in business, you can change but make sure you are doing it right. That’s a great point. Look inwardly first.
When I became a coach, I was like, “You guys are like me.” Chris and I were like all the people that are reading this, and we got issues too.
The same issues you have.
Life is a win-win. Givers gain. The people who are most successful are willing to share. Click To TweetWe are like, “What have I created?” I’m terrible. If you are a loan officer and say, “I’m terrible.” We do too, sometimes.
Before I was a coach, the organization we were in had 35 coaches or so. As a student, you guys look up to the coaches, “They got their stuff together. It’s perfect. I can’t believe this. A few years ago, they closed 30 loans a month in 2014. That’s unbelievable.” As I became a coach, I got to see that the more business they do, the more work problems and team issues they have. They have all the same problems you have at five loans a month. They have more of them.
Most of the guys are good salespeople and struggle to be that manager, leader or boss. A lot of times, you get into the loan because you are a good salesperson, and you have to work on your management and leadership skills. We are exactly like everybody else. Whether they are doing more business than us or less, we all have the same issues and struggles in life.
I’ve said this on other shows, “Problems are signs of life. Problems are a light that says, ‘I got an issue with my business. I got an issue that’s going on.’” The best thing you can do is be appreciative of that problem when it comes up. You will always be going to have issues and problems.
One thing that we try to do is when I catch myself saying, “I’ve got a problem,” I will change it to, “I’ve got an opportunity to learn.” I’ve got a challenge. “What a fun challenge we have to deal with.”
If one of my employees will say, “We got an issue with the loan,” I will say, “Good news.” They were like, “What?” “We had an issue with the loan. We get to learn a new way to fix a problem. I’m so excited. Give it to me.”
If you don’t have any issues with loans, that means you don’t get any loans. If you get loans, you get issues.
If you don’t have any upset clients, you probably aren’t doing enough business. You want upset clients.
One of my favorite sayings that one of my mentors taught me is, “If you are not skinning your knee every now and then, you are not running fast enough.” It’s like kids on the playground. If they are playing hard, they’re going to fall down and skin their knee. It’s the same thing for us. If we are going to have an upset client, every now and then, we are going not to do a perfect job because we are running as fast as we can.
If you are going to change companies, make sure you have 1 or 2 mentors that you 100% trust that is going to help guide you make that decision because you are an emotional being. You are not going to be able to see it because you are involved in the process, which is the reason why you hire an attorney to represent you. You hire a real estate agent to represent you. If it’s an emotional decision, you need someone unemotional to help you think through that process. Otherwise, you are going to make a decision or a choice, and you are not going to be happy with it. Make sure you have a mentor. Who are some of your mentors?
I’ve got so many. It starts with my mom and dad trying to raise me. I’m a Christian and a faithful man. I grew up in the church. That was huge for me. My dad was my basketball coach from the time I was six years old. He had me out there. For you guys who probably don’t know, I played college basketball at the college you never heard of at Freed-Hardeman University. Also, a little bit in high school in Tennessee. I’m a 6’1”, a White kid that can’t jump but I could shoot. I learned how to shoot when I was six years old. I learned that work ethic and how to do things the right way.
In my first real job out of college selling cars. A guy named Bulldog, I can’t remember his real name but everybody’s called him Bulldog. He’s a great salesperson, and I love that guy. He took me under his wing. I’m a 23-year-old kid who graduated college, has been married a few months, and trying to figure out how to sell cars. He would pull me over and say, “This is how you do this. This is how you say this. This is what you do.” He’s the best salesman on the lot and a super nice guy. Thankfully, he was mentoring me, and I was soaking it up.
From then on, I went to get into the mortgage business. I moved to Nashville and got into the mortgage business. There were a couple of guys in my office, Gary McBee, Haynes Johnson, Matt Askland, and Justin Wimsatt, who mentored me. I didn’t know what I was doing. “What do I do?” I will listen to them on the phone, what they say and how they say it. Some of them have only been doing it for two years but that’s two years more than I had.
I got into a coaching program, The CORE, and had mentors that are that much further ahead, and then I went to Tony Robbins. I’ve got Carl White in the Mortgage Marketing Animals. People like Heath Barnes taught me about bitcoin and things like that. You’ve got to have people that have studied things a lot more than you and can contract that learning curve. I can read everything about a subject and learn it slowly. I will fail my way forward or I can talk to somebody who’s good at it and learn from them, and get there much quicker than I can on my own and avoid a lot of heartache and stress.
I always remember that I used to be hesitant to ask people for help and say, “Can you mentor me? Can you show me the way?” I’ve changed that thought and thinking, “Everyone wants to help me.” I remember when I was young in the business, I called one of the top loan officers in my area and said, “I would like to go to lunch with you because I understand you are one of the top loan officers.” He turned me down and I was like, “I will never do that.” If anyone ever calls me and says, “I would sometimes like to know more about your business,” I would be willing. Life is win-win. It’s not a win-lose. Win-win for both teams. Win-win for you and everyone. That’s a much better world to live in. The world that you think you live in is the world you live in.
The people who are the most successful that I know are willing to share. The guys that are successful are the ones that want to guard all the secrets, “I might lose this all tomorrow if I tell you all my secrets.” The people I want to surround myself with are the givers gain. Guys in my office that I’ve taught scripts to, and they have been here for a few years, now I hear them reteach my scripts and improve my scripts. They’ve taken my scripts, made them their own, and improved them.
Now, I have them teach other loan officers how to say and do certain things. I love it. The most successful people will be willing to share with you. Hunt down the most successful guy in your company or town. Go take him to lunch and ask them, “How have you done what you’ve done?” If they are like most people, they will be like, “Let me help you. Where are you at? What’s your next step?”
It’s a scarcity mentality, “This is mine.” None of it’s your stuff. They are not your ideas. No one is an island. We all need other people. The more you give and the more connections you make. At the end of your life, people aren’t going to say, “How many loans were you doing in your life? How much money did you make? How much debt did you have?” They are going to be like, “How did you make people feel when you connected with them?” They are going to be like, “Connected and loving.”
Did you change somebody’s life?
I sure did. It doesn’t matter how many loans you are doing. Whether you are doing 2 or 5, or 10, that’s not your identity. It’s how loans you have. Especially in the coaching program, if you did 20, now you got to do 20 for the rest of your career a month.
What truly makes you happy is who you become, who you touch, and who you help grow. Click To TweetYou got to set the border at 25.
You then got to go to 30. When does it end?
One of the best examples of that, and everybody can do this, is to think of a time in your life when you achieve something cool. You achieve that goal. For me, it was the scholarship for basketball or I had the best game I’ve ever had in my career. You had your best month ever in the business or maybe you hit a certain net worth number, the 1 with 2 commas in it or whatever it might be. People hit certain milestones in their life.
You are thinking about one, “How long were you ecstatic? Was it six years that you were on top of the world or was it six months? Was it maybe six weeks?” It’s a big milestone. “Was it maybe six days or a couple of hours?” Somewhere between a couple of hours, 6 days, and maybe 6 weeks that wears off. It’s like, “What’s next?”
It’s that growth process and achievement will never make you happy. Tony Robbins says, and it’s one of my favorite quotes, “What you get in life will never make you happy. It’s who you become in life that will determine if you are happy or not, in the end.” He’s got Jets, millions of dollars, and owned that NBA team, what you get will never make you happy long-term. Maybe for a minute.
Maybe if I’m the guy who gets a Jet or whatever, I would be happy for a few minutes or a couple of days a week but that’s never going to make you happy long-term. It’s who you become, touch, and help grow. You didn’t invite me here to share my faith but I’m going to share my faith in Christ. If you don’t have that, in my opinion, you are missing a big hole in your life. You can put my contact information here. Anybody can call me that would like to talk about that.
Understanding what your values are, who you are as a person, and what you believe and don’t believe is a journey of life. Re-examining where you are and what you believe is always good, and asking yourself why you believe that. I want to make one more point before we wrap up, which is what you were saying about happiness and who you become in life.
We used to be taught early in our career, “You do these things in the mortgage business, you are going to have this in your business and your life, and then you will be this way.” It’s almost the opposite. It’s like, “Who am I going to be? Am I going to be loving, kind, generous or joyful?” Who are you going to be around your team that will then help you in the doing process? Whatever you have is what ends up happening.
One thing that I always try to tell people is, “Catch yourself when you say, if this happens, then I will be happy or when then,” so if then and when then statements. “If I make X this year, then I will be happy.” “When I become X millionaire, when I become married or when I become retired, then I can relax and be happy.” How about, “I would be more relaxed and happy?” How blessed are we to be in this business?
You can go out, make a great living, and have a great team. How blessed are we? Don’t say if when or if then, say, “Now, I’m going to be happy. I’m going to love this. I’m going to do everything I can.” Whenever that happens is awesome and a bonus but I’m not going to wait until a point in the future to be happy because when you say, “When I get here, then I will be happy,” as you get closer, what happens?
You push it out.
You push the goalpost out. “That’s not as much as I thought it was going to be, I can do more,” and then before you know it, you keep pushing the goalpost out, and you never get there because the goalpost keeps moving.
I like what you are saying because your words determine how you feel now. We wake up and look at things that sometimes say, “I have to do this.” I never use have anymore. I now use get. Everything that I’m doing, I get to do. If I get to do it and that’s a good thing. If I have to do it, I don’t want to do it.
We choose everything. You are choosing to be here on this show. We live in the United States of America. I could be at home watching Dr. Phil if I chose to. I’m choosing, after this, to get to work and knock out a little bit of extra work. You always get to choose to do what you do next. I love that mentality.
We get to end this episode now, unfortunately. I would love to have you on again, Chris, and do a deeper dive. If they want to contact you, what’s the best way for them to contact you?
You can give him my cell phone, and they can text me. Text me who you are and what’s going on.
What’s your cell phone number?
It’s (615) 945-3994.
Chris, I appreciate your friendship and the connection that we have. Thanks for being here. You are a blessing and keep on changing lives. Thanks, Chris.
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
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There you have it. Another great episode. You can find out more about all the ways we can help you at HeathBarnes.com. That’s it for this episode. Have a great week, and we will talk next time.
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About Chris Haynes
While he calls Middle Tennessee home today, Clint Haynes grew up in rural Kentucky with his parents and two siblings. After graduating from Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, TN, he began his career as a Mortgage Advisor in 2005. He and his brother, Chris, have been managing their own branch together since 2008. Here at their Preferred Rate branch, they lead and develop strong and effective teams to support and care for their borrowers and realtors.
That passion and caring for others is not only a priority in his business life, but a huge part of his personal life. Clint and his wife, Lacie, took this passion of caring for others to a whole new level by opening their home to several foster children through their work with AGAPE. Fostering gave them countless opportunities to share their faith by providing the safety, love, and support of a Christian home. Over the span of a few years, they welcomed several sibling groups (9 children in total) into their lives. In January of 2019 they also welcomed their own baby Oliver into the world! In October of 2019, they would foster a 17-year-old teenager who would find a permanent place in their home one year later as Quincy! And, then in October of 2020, a baby girl name Elsie would arrive! Clint and Lacie continue to teach bible classes and find other ways to stay involved with their local church including leading a fostering ministry to support others in this role.
Clint has that same caring spirit for his clients. He enjoys face-to-face meetings as a way to get to know and better understand client needs. He then is able to structure loans that make sense for individual clients and help them accomplish their goals. Clint is diligent in keeping them informed and answering questions in a timely manner. He wants to make sure clients experience a smooth process and leave the closing table smiling.