Editorials

Recently I watched the movie Old Yeller with my kids.  (Shocking, I know, but it was the first time I’d seen it).  As you undoubtedly know, at the end the boy has to shoot Old Yeller because he contracted a disease that made him crazy.  As the boy is lamenting the loss of his beloved dog, his father uses this opportunity to teach him a critical life lesson that all of us to some extent realize, but many seem to forget, (especially those of us in the mortgage business).  Though not verbatim, the father says something to this effect: “Son, sometimes life just kicks you down and grinds a man into the ground and it just doesn’t seem to make sense.  But life is not all like that.  A lot of it is pretty good.  If you spend all the good times worrying about the bad you make the whole thing bad.  If you look around, you will find something good to take your mind off the bad.”  

At this point, the boy acknowledges that the pup of Old Yeller is right in front of his face and he makes the decision to love Young Yeller like he did Old Yeller.  This lesson -to not obsess over the bad or you will make the good times bad too- is something we know in our hearts to do, but we rarely do it.  As an originator, manager or mortgage company owner, you get to practice this lesson all the time.  A loan is dying through no fault of your own.  What do you do?  Do you obsess over it and allow it to ruin your day or week or even -and I have seen people do it- your entire month?  Or do you switch your focus away from the loss, write it off as a learning experience, and focus on the good things going on in your pipeline? When you get hit with an irate customer or an IRS audit or a Comptroller audit, how do you respond?

All of life is a lesson in learning to accept this simple truth.  When things don’t go our way, when we get hit with that curve ball that just does not seem fair, we must understand that it is just a test.  We must get over it and move on to the wonderful future that awaits us.  Every top producer has had loans which have died at the last minute through no fault of their own.  They’ve all had irate customers, and people parked in U-Hauls because the loan did not close, and so on and so forth.  What made them top producers was that they did not allow it to ruin their production.  They took a walk around the building, took a deep breath and got back in the game, focusing on the good things and the things they could control. Unfortunately, the trap that many of us fall into is in believing that we are the only ones who are going through this.  EVERYONE has had loans die.  EVERYONE has had things not go their way.  It’s a part of life, and it’s a part of business.  

I know it is hard, especially in the midst of the storm, but if you want to live a life that is rewarding you must learn to accept this reality.  Life will continue to throw you the curve balls and there will never be a time when you have years with no curve balls.  That occasional loan will die.  It may not be your fault.  But we must learn to shake it off and get back on the horse or we will never win the race!  Remember in the Old Yeller story, the boy intentionally decided to begin to love Young Yeller.  We too can stop lamenting the loss of loans, and instead decide to love working on new loans, new marketing strategies and so on.  It’s just a matter of where we decide to focus our energy.  We can channel our energy on all of the things that haven’t gone our way, or we can focus on making the next transaction go our way.  The beauty is that we get to decide how we’ll react.  We control it!  Which path will you choose?

Brian L. Peart is President of Nexus Financial Group, Inc. and Commercial Capital Ltd.  He offers FREE tips to loan officers and owners through a weekly net letter.  To opt-in just go to www.nexusfinancial.com.