Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Building an Empire with Julie Yarbrough | Coffeez for Closers Ep. 10

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

We're continuing our celebration of International Women's Month with Julie Yarbrough—a true exemplar of leadership and innovation in the mortgage industry!Today, we're proud to feature the remarkable Julie Yarbrough, Founding Partner of Empire Home Loans Inc. At the helm of the mortgage arena, Julie has navigated Empire Home Loans to new heights by fusing cutting-edge technology with a people-first approach, revolutionizing the home loan process. Her leadership has not only propelled the company forward but has also made a significant impact on community banking and mortgage brokerage.🌟 Stellar Achievements 🌟:A mortgage industry veteran since the tender age of 18, embodying the term "mortgage lifer"Achieved an impressive record of 43 transactions in her peak month, setting a high bar for excellencePioneered the growth and success of various mortgage ventures, leading to her pivotal role at Empire Home Loans Inc., where she focuses on people, technology, and innovation.In this episode, we explore Julie's remarkable journey through the mortgage industry, the hurdles she's surmounted, and her unique approach to leadership that cements her status as an industry luminary.🎙️ Ideal for mortgage professionals, emerging leaders, or anyone fascinated by inspiring success stories, you won't want to miss this episode!✅ Remember to subscribe for more "Coffeez for Closers" episodes, bringing you closer to the figures reshaping today's mortgage scene.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What's up everybody? Welcome to Coffees for Closers, a show about visionaries, entrepreneurs, and of course, closers. Here we talk about their wins, their failures, and ultimately the story of their success. What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of Coffees for Closers. Today we have a very, very special guest, Mrs. Julie Yargo. She's the number one female CEO in the mortgage space currently. She's been on the Women of Vision Awards, been on, she's a Hall of Aim inductee. She is an absolute powerhouse in the mortgage space, and she's just an incredible human being. Everybody, welcome.

Mrs. Julie, Yarbo, thank you so much, Julie, for coming to today's show, especially we're on tour here. And I snagged you and I told you in our committee meeting, I'm going to let you know you're going to be on this show. So you probably didn't know this was all going to happen. I'm honored. I'm honored. Yes. So thank you for jumping in and we're going to just jump into it. So one thing I like to start the show with is how do you start your day? What's your morning routine when you get up every morning? Thank you for asking me that because it's so important.

It's the only it's the only discipline that I do not stray from, to be honest with you. I have a lot of other ones I struggle with. But the morning routine, I start with it depositing into my brain. So the first thing I don't do is I do not watch the news and I do not read anything that does not grow my mindset. So I work on my mindset. I work on my physical health, which I finally have worked on a lot. So I work on my physical health. And then I work on a gratitude. And so I journal. I do something called the morning dump, which is probably not the most attractive way to say it. But I free write and I free write for about 15 minutes so that I clear my space because I do a lot of coaching and

consulting throughout the day and I want to be able to give. Right. And I got to get through my shit to do that. So those are the three disciplines that I do every single day. And so I do TED Talk. And so I do TED talks and audio books and things like that to inspire me to grow, you know, so I can learn to give. That's awesome. That sounds like a pretty lengthy process. It's not that lengthy.

It's not that lengthy. I nail it an hour. In an hour. You've got it down. Well, yeah, because I'm not power lifting. And, you know, at night I'll do something else physical, but I'm just juicing my body up a little bit. And then I'm doing the morning dump and then I'm listening to something.

That's awesome. What time do you start? So I do not use an alarm and I'm up at about 4.30. in the morning. Like I'm just, my brain's up. I can't help that. It might be menopause. Yay. I'm an early riser. That's awesome. 4.30 in the morning is, uh, I get up around the same time. And I feel like that's a trend with a lot of leaders in the industry. It's an entrepreneurial. I think our brains don't shut down. And unless I want to drug it, I honestly, like, or even take a sleeper, like I can't because it dulls me. I'm a morning gal. I love mornings. It's where I get my

life. It's before I'm mom. It's before everything. Right. So, you know, if I had my brothers, it would be like 515, but what do you do? That's awesome. So you're a mom as well? I am a mom. How many kids? So I have one that I gave birth to. She's 15 in ninth grade. She's an amazing equestrian. I have a stepson who's in his 30s and we have two grandbabies. Yeah. Grandma, too. I'm not, you know, naturally the grandma, but I am the grandma. So I'm a Gigi. Yeah, I'm a hot Gigi. That's awesome. I have Willow and Baxter and two grandbabies. God bless you. That's awesome.

That's wonderful. So we'll dive into it. So how did you start Empire? Oh, how did I start Empire? You know what? I had two gentlemen, one of which I knew, Leah Witten for over 20 years, who was my rep back when I owned my first mortgage brokerage before the meltdown. And then Anthony Lombardo, they both served for state for camp.

And we were on a board together. And we started chatting. We chatted separately, and then we came together. and we met on values first, and I'm not going to lie. They said, hey, I think we want to start a brokerage. I said, well, before we talk about money or anything, let's talk about values. And we sat at a table for lunch, and we did not pull up financials or credit or anything. We talked about values.

Because the first time I owned a company, I did not partner with somebody who had the same value set. So I can't stress this enough if you're going to have partners or marrying them in business. So please share the same value set. And we do. God family team money. That's our value set. It works for us. And anyway, so that's how we formed the company, but we saw the cost to originate rising.

I was in retail. I don't know how deep you want me to get on this. We're going to get into that. There you go. So that's how I knew the why. I wanted to solve the problem of the why. And I wanted, I had a very big vision on what I wanted to grow. And it's very unique in terms of what we're doing.

Yeah. So then we aligned on who we were in the company and what roles we were going to take and so that they didn't over flap. And what type of individual do we want to invite to the company. So that's, that's how we got together. And that's five years ago. When did you start your entrepreneur journey? Oh, gosh.

In 2000, thank you for asking me that. Now I have to count. Maybe 2000, 2001 is when I started my own, I launched my own successful desk, and then people followed, and then I became a broker, and then I opened up a brokerage. And it was kind of fast and loose back in those days. You probably don't remember. I don't know when you got in the business.

I got in around 2000. I was 20 years old. Were you brokering? I was a broker. I never did retail. You remember all the rate sheets on the back of the wall and the, you know, the trans boxes and the stacking of the paper. And, yeah, we didn't have Internet back then. We didn't have unique opportunities to connect like we do now, right?

So I felt very alone and it was scary. And before the month, then I had 72 people. And, yeah, it was probably the greatest and worst adventure of my life, all rolled up in terms of business. So so many lessons I filled forward on. Yeah. And I don't get to ask this question a lot because a lot of people that I've had on the show didn't get to experience this. But having seen the success and then you went through the crash of 0708, what was that like?

The most debilitating, fearful experience of my life and I got pregnant through it. So I was not smart. I made tons of mistakes. I kept my staff. I kept my office. I kept my business over my personal. I lost about $862,000 to be precise. I had too many morals to file bankruptcy, which I'm just a smarter business person now and I understand that I am not my business and my business is not me and we are all replaceable. Okay. So I think we, I failed forward. So I lost my ass and I didn't know what to do without money. I'd never been without money. I made a lot

of money from, you know, since I got into sales. So, uh, you know, I have a couple stories. You know, I counted change in my car for formula. I didn't know about WIC. I didn't know what to do. I was stressed out. I wasn't pumping milk. And so I've been, you know, I've traveled first class to many countries and then I've counted change in my car for formula. And I built it all back. So I will say that. You know, you can get to anywhere. And with the right discipline and the right heart set and mindset, you can grow it back. So it was. for lack of a better word, really, I want to say the F word. Yeah.

Ficked up. It was hard. It was super, super hard. But when I look back on that, you know what I learned about myself? I have integrity. I'm my word. I can be trusted. I'll lay down and die from my team. But now I know I'm replaceable. And now I know that if I need to thin the staff, I can and I'll do it with honor and kindness. If I need to get rid of offices, I can and I'll do it with honor and kindness. and I know what a bottom line means. I know what it means like to be in the red and be in the black. I don't think I was as wise then.

And I know what it takes when you make money that you need to save it, right? And you need to do smart things with it. I'll never count change in my car again. I'll never do that. So it resides in my body now, my nervous system. So what do you think some of the biggest lessons you learn from that are? Number one, I'm replaceable. I am replaceable.

My company right now, if I got, with all due respect, got hit by a Mack truck tomorrow, right? It'll run like no other because I'm replaceable. I have standard operating procedures in place. Somebody could step in and know exactly what now they can't be me right but but they can do my rule right. So that's super important to know and I also know that bottom line matters and people matter but you don't have a structure in a company without money. I mean it takes money to run that ship right. So that entity has to be solvent all on its own. I am not empire and empire is not me. Now I have my fingerprint on it, my stamp on it,

but a lot of fingerprints make up that company. So I think when I died, my company died, right? Before. So I've got that perspective now. What do you think was the biggest source of inspiration for you to become like your own entrepreneur? Like what inspired you? My dad.

My dad was my inspiration. My dad unfortunately passed away at 52, but he was with TRW. if you remember before Experian, and he went around and was the head of security nationwide for TRW. And his job was to go in and pull banks like Bank of America and Wells Fargo on all the ways that they wanted credit to report positive and negative. So he was one of the inspirational people who started getting that feedback from the banks on reporting credit. And so he went off on his own and created a couple companies and I grew up within that.

And I got to see him reach. and he taught me at 12 that if you work from your heart, your money follows. And so that's what I live by, honestly. That's why I think people matter to me before the profit. Our number one goal is not money. It doesn't mean we're not profitable because we're profitable, but it's just not our number one value. And that's okay.

Everybody's got a different value set. I love that. And that's a trait that I'm seeing amongst the best of the best is that money doesn't matter. It matters. It just, it's not my driving factor. So when somebody comes, to me and says what's your basis points, what your split, I'm going to do 42 loans and I'm

I look at them and say, who are you? Because I did a lot of loans for a long time. It's great. What I've noticed, sometimes when you do a lot of loans, your personality suffers, your integrity suffers, the way you treat your team may suffer. That's not a, that's not a sweeping generalization, but we just kind of have a policy of no assholes allowed. I mean, we just do. And I love that about you, Julie. That's something I admire is that you just don't take everybody. You really, you really hand select the people you want to work with. We have an invitation only platform. And I don't say that exclusively. I say it inclusively, but it just, there's not a lot of room for everybody. Now, there are organizations that I forward them to that, that, you know, they're not all

rowing together. I went to retail, right, for the 12-year stint. And with that, it became a lot of, I learned a lot. What worked in retail, what worked in broker. And there's a lot that works in both platforms. I'm not a basher of retail other than the cost model. The cost model doesn't work. That's what doesn't work. All the people feeding off of that margin. But there's a lot that does work within that region, in that market. The unity, you know, the collaboration, the community, the connectivity of the loan officers. That all works. So if I could take that and take the optionality and take the cost model and marry it together, who, that's what gets me up in the morning. That's what wakes me up in the floors. I'm like, let's go. Let's grow. I love it. Yeah. You can

feel me. You know, one thing, you know, we're going to talk about that transition from retail to wholesale because you got, you left a cush job in retail. You were probably high six figures. I made some money. And then you went and started your own brokerage to make zero dollars. It did. Deal with compliance, licensing, sitting up your own technology and not having any sense of community. You literally in like now. We're three people. You would be considered crazy. You know, you'd be like, what would, why would you do that? Why did you? Thank you for knowing. that because there's not you you've done the same thing so you get it like I mean I don't think if I ever been asked that question so thank you for asking you that way because I did I did leave

that behind um you know what my inspiration was is to grow an organization the way I wanted to grow it because you know what I sat in a job description and I had to fill my job is to create profit and I'm a profit making a machine I can do it right but can I do it with joy like I get to go to work with people that I like like we just came from another team trip with another lender and I got to be around 50 of our top producers. I like them. I don't have to go like, oh, every time somebody talks, oh, what I mean? So I think that's what was inspirational. I get to gross, because I am an entrepreneur, even in that role, you know, they kind of let me go a little bit because I can't be managed anymore. The lid's off. The lid is off. So I think it was just the

inspiration of being around people and growing an organization around people that I know like and respect. That's fun, right? I love that. And, Actually, I want to dive into that now because what I've noticed with people that I've talked to at Empire Home Loans is they love Julie. Oh. They love you. And you've developed a culture that's just like diehard Julie fans. Well, and I think they're fans of one another because I think what's special is they look to the left and they look to the right and they make sure their teammates are winning. Like one of the loan officers created an accountability call.

We have four now that they're full, you know, and then there's a waiting list for another one because they love. each other. And it's like a 15-minute call every day, but I didn't create that. I'm not managing them. They're stepping up, right? So they got balcony friends or the basement friends, and they're kind of reaching for that balcony friend. It's great. It's really, it's, thank you, because I don't get to do this enough with my peers, and that's a nice feedback. Yeah. So what do you think some of the things that you're doing are to really fuel that culture building? The hardest way to recruit ever. I'm going the slow roll. And you've had a couple people in your seat recently who's kind of kicking my ass to be bigger and better

and I'm doing a slow role on recruiting and I kick myself when you get to the goals section you'll hear but you know we research everybody before we call them we know who they are we look at who they are in social media we look at what numbers they're doing and it's not always about getting the upper end numbers it's about can I take somebody who may be you know in the old days it used to be two loans a month right now it's you know it's it's different right now it's different you know if they're in this business and committed, you are one of the few passionate, amazing souls that should be in this business, right? Or you're blind and dumb. Because it's harder now than ever, right?

It's just harder. So I think we do our homework and we're intentional. And that hasn't served me so much. I'm going to be honest with you. It's a rough one because I'm competitive. And I like to be number one. And I looked at my numbers. I've hired 18 since January 1st.

And I'm at the same numbers I was in August, 2023. And I keep going, kush, kush, kush, kush. You know, Julie, what are you doing? But because I peel them off just as fast as I bring them on. If you're not focused on mortgage full time, you're probably not a great person for our platform. Because you need to know what's changing and what's coming and what programs are. You can dabble. This is not an industry to dabble in.

Especially now. Ever, though, right? Because we're helping people with the number one purchase of their life. Like, you need to be an advisor. You're not slinging hash. We're not slinging bacon and eggs. You know, we're truly educating on being wealthy through homeownership. That's what I see is doing, you know?

But, you know, the culture, like the people who really like talk about Julie, like, how are you getting to be so likable amongst your colleagues? I think I'm real. You know what? I just told you I counted change in my car. And I've got people who listen, went on that trip last week and we're worried about their Uber credit card right now, like to pay the Uber at $125. But it's a scary time. And so if I can be vulnerable with them, I'm real. I put my pants on the same way they do every day.

There's not many magic pill. I just, you know, lost a bunch of weight. How did I do it? It was grueling and it sucked. It sucked. You know, I had to watch what I put in my pie hole every day and I have to work out. But, you know, there's nothing magic to being successful. It's the grind of discipline, right?

So you're so, like, you're so resilient. You went through so much. The crash of 08, like, what inspires you? You know what? I want to be honest with you. Here's another thing I do. I do business planning. So if you work for a company, have a freaking business plan.

You don't know where you're going without a map. When I get on a call and do a business planning clinic with somebody that's a 20 minute back and forth on a Zoom, that's what inspires me to get in their world to know that they're vulnerable enough to say out loud what their goals are, both professionally and personally, and to share it with me. They're, you know, the owner of the company, right? It's vulnerable for them. And I get vulnerable with them.

And I get to know them. And that's what inspires me. somebody who's willing to be vulnerable and take action anyway because it's you know this is scary I don't I mean you doing this podcast it just whips off of you that's this is not natural for me you seem like you've rehearsed this no well I know my you're asking about my life I know my life right but it's you know it's nerve back it's a little nervous so getting out of your comfort zone and watching other people that's what's inspiring to me being scared and doing it anyway right that's that's cool I like it if it lights me up that's awesome

So all the success you're seeing in the business, like what are some of the changes you're seeing right now in the mortgage industry? Right now. Not like we've come so far from last year. Right now, 2024. What do you think you're seeing? I mean, you've got to remember what I focus on in my role. My role is really about recruiting and growth. And I finally see the turn for retail guys to go, they're finally seeing it.

I've been trying to cram it in a kind way, not the disruptive way, because that's just not who I am, about eating off the margin. I was one of the people eating off their margin that couldn't go to bed every night. So I finally feel like the retail people are seeing it. And I should have done this two or three years before. Yeah, you should have. But you do it when you're ready and you do it when you trust, right? So I finally see the turn. Like I think we're at 24% in the broker world.

I see us going to 46, 47% pretty rapidly, like where we were prior to 2007. And I love the brokers or better thing, but I want to be honest with you. It's not because we're better people. it's because it's a better cost model. It's a more affordable cost model for the consumer. At the end of the day, that's why we do what we do. Okay, I'm not passionate about that at all. Did you see that when you transitioned from retail?

Well, that's why I transitioned from retail. I was at an MBA conference, and I saw the cost to originate being flashed on the screen, and my job was to keep my regions profitable. I ran a lot of P&Ls, and I was the person behind the screen pulling the rates for all my loaners. officers, okay? So I felt it. I felt that I was sitting on their margin. Did I bring enough value

for that? And that's what's getting around now. When you've got like regional managers that are sitting on 75 people and they're making 60 bips, there's no, that's what are you giving for that? What is the trade? Are you paying for office space? You're paying for support. I could go on for an hour on this. Sorry. No, no. Go on. That's the, that's the piece I'm seeing. Finally, the loan officer's going, okay, wait, I'm paying a sales manager, branch manager, a regional manager, a district manager, and my CEO, and they're all eating off that margin. Why am I doing that when I bring in my own loan? I push my own loan through, right? So that's, I thought, well, shit, if I can get the great people who really know how to go out and

get the business, manufacture a loan and get it to the other side, can I build a platform for them where they don't need to be managed? You shouldn't have to manage a loan officer unless you're growing them, right, unless you're bringing them up through the ranks and then you'd manage activities and, you know, but you can lead them. So there's a big distinction, between management and leadership for me. I lead, I do not manage. If I have to manage you, we're not the right platform for you. You should be under somebody, not me.

I wanna manage you. Yeah, so I think that's, I saw a problem that I could fix, right? And then I could speak to it because I was the person tugging the, you know, the rates for them. You know, I was sitting on their margin and I knew I did not provide enough value for what I was earning on them. And so could I squish that margin,

give them a reasonable margin, right? I don't think I knew what I knew with all the states and all the different regions and what margins should we be in and all that good stuff. But, you know, I'm learning. I'm growing up. I love it. Let me ask you, what do you think right now in this environment? What's a mindset that a loan originator has to have to succeed right now?

Courage. I'm being honest with you. Like, blind faith that you're in the right place. And hustle. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm in hustle beats talent. I don't care how talented you are as a loan officer. If you're sitting behind your desk and you're not pounding the pavement,

somebody's going to eat your frickin lunch because you've got seven loan officers every deal, right? I mean, yeah, I know we had 60% of the industry leave, but if you're still in it, if you're not differentiating yourself, if you're not getting out of your comfort zone, you better look. You better look and see how much time you've got. Because I don't, you know, winter rate's going to come back. I don't know.

But I was successful in every rate environment. But you know why? Because my hustle was hard. I hustled hard. I wasn't always the smartest. I wasn't. I'm not the smartest loan originator. Leo Witt and my partner?

Incredible. But you know what I'm willing to do? Be fearless. And I don't even know if it's fearless because it's not. I'm fearful. I don't know what I'm walking into after this. We're going to a meeting. I don't know what we're walking into.

But I'm courageous enough to step in to it, not knowing, and know that I'm a good person. I've got courage and I'm going to take action when necessary. Right. So I think the mindset has to be to be courageous, right? and know you're in the right profession. And if you're questioning it, I would say probably go look at some other occupations.

But if you know this is what you're meant to do, then you better step out of your comforts. I'm going to do something every day that scares the shit out of you. So how did you foster such a courageous and grit influence mentality? I was, I think I was raised by a mom who worked, number one, and she was a banker for 30 plus years in the commercial space. So she taught me work ethic. She taught me how to hustle.

You can be a mom and you get a career. And you don't have to feel guilty about that. You can have both of them. Now, I don't know that I've honored the second part, like feeling guilty because I try to wear both hats as well as I can. But the other part is my dad was a fear. He was pretty fearless. He was a Marine and he was in the Secret Service for a while.

And he just had a beautiful career. And I got to see him fail as an entrepreneur. And I got to see him succeed as not. entrepreneur and I knew that my heart was free like that I am a free bird like that I cannot be contained if any of my managers ever watch this they're laugh their asses off because you know to put me in containment is very hard because I you know if you're an entrepreneur you're like buck in the system a little bit I don't want to do it that way I want to do it this way and right so I have that creative flow and I think over the years growing up overweight with glasses and went to eight schools I had to

come out of myself for people you've got judgment right away so I had to show who I was and I learned that I'm a pretty decent person. I'm a lot of fun. You are. You're fun at a party, yeah. You're so entertaining. You're, you're, so charismatic. And you're a great person always have around.

And so awesome on our mastermind's meetings. I'm honest. And I'm honest to a fault, right? Like, if I don't agree with something. Yeah, you were like, I don't know if we should have that person on the meeting because I'm just going to speak my mind. I don't know how it's going to resonate with that. Well, I, and I just want to be collaborative, right?

And I now get to choose at 53 years old who I want to sit at a table with. That's that's that's why I don't want a job. That's why I want to be an entrepreneur because I get choice in that, right? Yeah, I had a lot of years where I set up board meetings. I'm the only female and I roll very well with men. In fact, I love men. I love sports. I can man up just like the next person, but I happen to be a female, right?

So there's room, I think, for all of us. There's room for all of us. And yeah, so I forgot the question. Who do you think your greatest influence is in your entrepreneurial journey? Well, I mean, I would go back to my dad. I apologize to keep going back to him. No, I love that. He whispered, I think, as a child in my ear and every girl who's got a great dad,

like he just said, you're special or something special. I don't know if it was full of shit or not, but I was like, oh, it's a little special about me, right? Thank God he did that because we had, you know, kind of a, you know, I didn't have a silver spoon childhood. Let me put it that way. So I think resiliency helped me develop who I'm being, but I think my dad gave me the vision that I could work from my heart and everything falls into place.

That entrepreneur in him is who I aspire to be. So what do you think your why is right now? My why is my kid. My 100% why I'm going to be honest with you is my daughter. daughter is Bella Bliss Hayes. I don't think I would be half of the human being I am without mothering that child.

She teaches me lessons every single day. And I see, yeah, you did it. You can get me to choke up. Like, I love my business and I love my, what I create there, but to create a human who goes out into the world and can be the most dynamic version

of what you created in the world, like, whoo, like that's my wife. I love it. God, sorry. You know, this is a safe place and we love this because, like I told you initially, Julie, like this podcast, I learned so much from you guys. And it's such a blessing for me to be like here and have these deep, meaningful conversations because when do I have that opportunity? That's true. It's true. When do I have that?

Because we're always in business. Like tick to tis. So thank you for that. So we never get to get out of our comfort zone and really dive deep and know somebody. Like when was the last time you sat with somebody and asked them 15 questions? in sequence like to learn me maybe I need to do this learn about them and who they are and what inspires them and why they are who they are and what challenges that they faced and you know how do they plan on getting better and what are what's the vision and what is the vision for empire

and I want you to know I challenge myself with this all the time because you're as you know somebody I aspire to be right like you have a great organization you kick my ass in numbers you I ask with humans. You have a great platform. You're young. You have a different perspective, right? So what I've always said is I will stop growing when I can't know the people that work for the organization. I've been challenged on that many times by people that I love and respect. I think I see a vision of 250 to 300 value-based loan officers who are engaged 100% of the time with their career. 100% of the time is obviously a big pie dream, but I want them engage that this is their career and that they want to help human beings and educate them on, you know,

homeownership, right? I don't want part-time. I don't want to be the proverbial broker shop that we used to be. We're just going to hang a license and maybe we'll come back to it when the market's great. So I want 250 to 300 value-based producing wonderful humans working for our organization. And then I can stop grinding on the growth and I can go grind in something else. Yeah, that's where, you know, I recently transitioned from growth to kind of just do this podcast and trying to be more involved at a macro level. But one thing I do fail out myself is like, I don't know the 900 loan officers that work for

me more. It's hard. Sadly. And I would love a way to do that. You know, I'm trying to have them know me these sort of things and the meetings and stuff. But if there was a way I could learn about every single one of them, almost like I should just pull them all aside and do a video with them. I mean, that wouldn't take much time at all.

So it would just take 900 hours. But, you know, there's lots of fun things. I have some ideas for you. Like, you know, Matt Isbio, let's talk about him for a minute. Like, how does he know when he walks into a room what everybody's name is? Have you noticed that he does that? Yeah. I mean, yes, he's got the photographic memory or whatever.

I put it in quotes because I'm like, is that shit real? Yeah, I have a photographic memory, but it's numbers and it's not names. It's beautiful. I mean, you know, anyway, yes, it's hard. So that's my vision. And, you know, I don't need to be number one. That's not my vision. I don't want to be number one.

I don't have the scruples for number one. I know that I'll be challenged a lot. Yeah. But I want to be value-based and passionate and happy and have joy. Yeah. And that's a great aspiration. It's my next 50 years. You know, and so I always contemplate like, okay, number one, you know, we're number one.

you know, we're number one off, we're number one in California. We try to be number one nationally as well. It is, it is something we strive for, and it is something that always is perplexed because there is a lot of like, you know, it's a moral dilemma because I try to balance my ego all the time. I always want to keep my ego at bay. And something we suffer, all of us have to. When you become a big leader, something that, so how do you juggle with your ego?

How do you keep it at bay? I mean, I'm going to be honest. with you, I have the biggest, fattest complex of imposter syndrome that you'll ever see. Like, I don't, I, I think I, I don't see myself as other people see us, or see me, excuse me. I, um, I don't, I, I, I, I am, listen, here's a deal. I think I come more insecure than I come more, I think I'm outgoing and people think that I might have a large ego, but I usually have to muster myself up to step into, you. what I'm seen as.

Like if I win an award, I'm always like, I haven't earned it yet. You know, I haven't, let me earn it, and then you can give it to me, right? So I think I'm working more on having my outsides match my insides and being, just owning my bigness. Does that make sense? Not in size, because I've always been kind of like a big girl,

so I'm trying to shrink. But I also want to own my greatness. Own my greatness, right? So I'm working on that. And so I lean more to the insecure side. I'm not going to lie. I think sometimes it might be easier for men to kind of lean into that, you know, that kind of tiger in you, you know? Right?

Because, you know, you guys are masculine. And so I don't know. It's just a, I don't know. It's a thought. Yeah. No, it's a great thought. And it makes a lot of sense. One thing I like to ask everybody at the end of this podcast, it's a three-pronged question.

Okay. Okay. It's, what is a personal goal that you have for yourself? Okay. What is a business goal that you have? And what's a goal that you have for your family? I'm going to start from the bottom up, may I? Yes, you can.

So I'm going to put myself out there for my family. I recently separated about six months ago from an 18-year relationship. So, yeah, it's actually wonderful and we're in a great place. I think sometimes you realize we're loving and kind and we're a family still. So I did the whole Gwenneth Paltrow and coupling. But because we still have a beautiful family, right? So I think for me it's healing and figuring out who I am. in my home as a leader of my home without, you know, a leader leading me in my home, right?

And balancing my daughter's life and having her get the best out of both of her parents and having us still be friends. So that's number one for family. And being present with her while she goes through high school because she's got three years left. And then she's not going to want anything to do with me. I don't know if she wants anything to do with me now, but there's that. So, you know, those teenagers are bliss. So next thing is personal. My personal goal is to be fit in my mind, in my heart, and in my soul. And I say that with love. Like, I really want my brain to always be growing,

and I want my heart always to be growing, and I need my body to be fit enough to carry me through the next 50 years. And I want a lot of travel on the ground. So my body needs to carry me there. And for business, we did talk about this. I mean, I want to get to a place where I'm not grinding and growing the way I'm doing it right now, because it's taking a lot out of me. And I want to get to 250 to 300 value-based,

loan officers within Empire that are happy and joyous to be there so that I can go to the next place that I'm supposed to go to, which is leading, leading them and giving them all the tools that they need, right, and being present and not grinding and growing all the time because that's my role. I love it. I love everything that you said. You've been an incredible guest. You're a huge inspiration to me as well, and you're a blessing to know, and I really appreciate that you sat down with me and we got to know each other. We got to dive deep with each other. And more importantly, now, like we're going to see so much in terms of collaboration together. Thank you.

Let's keep winning together. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you for coming to the show. Thank you for having me. You're lovely. All right. Hoo, who, who.