Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to season four of the Mic'd up show, where every mortgage has a story.
This is the ultimate hub where the hidden stories behind the mortgage industry come to life. I'm Michael Kelleher.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Good morning, I'm Michael Zao.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: And in every episode, Mike and I, we dive deep into the entrepreneurial spirit, the strategic insights, the breakthrough innovations that build the world's greatest mortgage companies. So whether you're advancing your career or or scouting for industry leaders or just exploring opportunities in fintech, career growth, prop tech, you're in the right place. Get ready to unlock the story behind every mortgage. This story is going to be real, raw, perhaps emotional, but on point with you, our audience who listens to us, we talk to you about how we can help you with career advancements. And a lot of our guests show a up into the right trajectory. And John's going to give us the truth that the mortgage industry is very cyclical. It goes up and down, and with it, oftentimes your life goes up and down.
Before we begin, John, just thank you, President of Citi First Mortgage. Always great to have a president of a strong imb.
Do you want to give a quick hello or introduction before we dive in?
[00:01:19] Speaker C: No. I appreciate this and as always, I appreciate your collaboration with a lot of things we do inside the industry.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Mike, thank you, thank you and thank you for all you do. I know you're out there on the speaking circuit, the co op circuit, collaborative. So you are very influential in the industry.
Obviously, to get there, you took a path, started out of sales, moved your way up. And we're going to hear a little bit about that today, but we're going to hear about it in the form of John's story because I think it's really powerful. He shared it with us and gave us a chance to cater our questions to what is a life that others do live in mortgage, but very few are willing to talk about it. So one of the pieces you talked about was being called the latch key kids. Maybe you could explain what that term meant when you described you and your brother. And just for the sake of our industry, how has it changed your lens on the benefits of stable home ownership versus renting?
[00:02:19] Speaker C: Latchkey is basically a nice way of saying nobody was home. Right.
My brother and I grew up in a little town in Orange County, California by the name of Seal Beach. Okay. Our mom worked a ton, our stepdad drank too much. And we basically raised ourselves on a beach and in a neighborhood where our babysitters, you know, was every other kid. On the beach. Our biological dad was in a neighboring city, Huntington beach. However, not engaged, mainly due to our mom. Kind of drove a wedge between us at that time. We learned later on.
Being a latchkey kid taught me two things. It taught me independence and appreciation for stability. Okay, we didn't have a ton of structure growing up. My brother and I spent a considerable amount of time at friends houses with much more stability than our own.
I have many fond memories of growing up with several different families that played a significant role in my life and my upbringing. And I think that's why I gravitated towards the mortgage industry and real estate business.
My mom was a realtor who focused primarily on income properties.
And a good friend of mine's dad was a mortgage broker. So at a young age I saw the flexibility in the job responsibilities in the income earning potential mortgage industry, provided I viewed homeownership. It just wasn't a career, it was personal to me. It was my version of giving people what I craved growing up and that was security and peace.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Can you give us a story of when you were growing up on decision making and what you had to do in order to get from, from point A to point B for survival purposes? Right. A lot of what we've seen in your life story is based upon survival, survival mechanics. And so starting at the, at the beginning when you were younger, what kind of choices or kind of story could you tell us to say, okay, this is a life decision and I'm going to have to make it. And then that, and that's led you to make other life's choices based upon need. Right.
Versus want. Need is like we need shelter and food and the basic necessities of life, even life itself. So can you give us a story of growing up on how that being a kid and being in that situation had brought you into to make life's choices today?
[00:04:53] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm having a flashback to the, you know, the family counselor's couch right now.
We fortunately or unfortunately, we developed some of the skills at a very young age and some of them turned out to benefit me and some of them turned out to, you know, put a hindrance on my life and growth. And I think the, the biggest real time example, and we'll talk about it a little bit more, is when we went through our mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis.
I always had a relationship with money, good or bad, and I knew how to create it.
But instead of kind of earning it from, I would say, honest jobs, I turned when I couldn't get employed I turned that into a survival skill of how to borrow from family and friends. Okay, so again, a good thing, bad thing, reflecting back to my younger child, a skill that comes off the top of my mind would be just, you know, getting a new surfboard or a new baseball bat and then turning around and selling it. We didn't have Craigslist or Facebook at that time, but, you know, selling it for a profit to a friend of mine or someone else in the city that I grew up in.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: John, there's a. There's a principle that, of one of my life coaches that, that I have is to ask six times for exactly what you want.
And, you know, first time, like, you know, for example, like, can I have a cookie? Can I have a cookie? Can I have a cookie? And no, no, no, no, no. Right. But in the same sense, for example, when the book Chicken Soup for the Soul came out, Mark Victor Hansen, he asked. He asked for money for funding for his book, and he got turned down 126 times.
[00:06:39] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Right. And so for you, you know, you've had to ask for. I mean, growing up, you had to ask for maybe food on the table, maybe housing and, and, and in a part of your life, even life itself.
[00:06:54] Speaker C: Yes, absolutely.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Can you give us, can you give me an example where you've had to ask multiple times in, in your business life to say, okay, it didn't work this way, but I. But maybe, maybe we can do it this way or maybe we can do it that way. What can. Whether it was during the meltdown or even recently with the, with the hike in interest rates. What, you know, can you give us a story of, of something that may have happened during that time?
[00:07:17] Speaker C: Well, I think it goes back to the basics. Right.
Everyone tries to get all creative in different ways. I mean, AI is a big talk right now. CRMs are a big talk and all the bots going on out there, but at the end of the day, it's still the contacts and the activities that create business development, that create, create. Basically putting food and income on your table. Okay.
I'm a handshaker, baby kisser. You mentioned that. I'm out there on the circuit. All of the above, but I think it is. Everything inside of our business is relationship driven, whether they want to say it or not. But it's the one consistent factor that I could correlate to, you know, the success that I've had and the success that originators who work with me continue to have.
I hope that answered your question. It was a long question. My ADD kicked in there for a second, but hopefully I covered it for you.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: That drive, John, that allowed you to keep asking, to be resourceful, to have the ability to speak and sell.
Do you think that is a, a product of your environment or do you think it's something you're born with? Like, can you teach this type of drive and ability to build relationships, or do you think it's something more often people born with.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: Yeah, great question. I think my childhood absolutely gave me the drive, but I think it's a mixture of, I would say nature and nurture. Okay. Some people are born with a spark. Okay. I like to reference. My son has the it factor. I wish I had the factor. But the flame comes from your environment. Okay. When you grow up with uncertainty, that can either paralyze you or push you. And for me, it pushed me. Okay. You can teach someone to care, but you can inspire them to move. And drive comes from when purpose meets pressure.
I remember this at a very young age. Jim Van Gorder at. He was actually a. A mentor and a teacher of mine at Louis Alamitos High School in Orange County. He said, adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it. And that has always stuck with me since my high school years. I won't tell you how far back that is.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: So in your. In your 20s, you have the investment property, right. And you have your.
Your in the mortgage business. You're going through some refinances.
This is all before the age of 23. You're owning a, I think a strip mall, converting it. Do you think you were so caught up in the business you didn't have a chance to look at it from outside the forest? Or do you think you knew more about home ownership or the pathway to home ownership than most people coming out of school? Because they don't teach it in school.
[00:10:10] Speaker C: They don't. You're spot on about that. I wish they did. I wish they taught you how to balance a checkbook in school. Right. But that's one of my podium speaking things that I've talked about for years.
I think that I was guided a little bit through some friends and family, but I also had just as much as I've had bad luck throughout my career, early on, I had some good luck. We made some money, we made some solid investments. Okay.
And in. During that period of time, you know, I was, I was hungry. I'm still hungry, I'm still motivated every single day.
But I learned to earn early. Okay. I would say, and invest wisely. That wasn't always my method throughout my whole life. We'll get into the rise of fall of John Pressell. But you know, my dad owned a pharmacy. I swept floors there, stock shelves, worked at beach shops, anything kind of to make a buck.
Saving came a little later as I was working in college at a real estate investment firm. And like after blowing my first couple paychecks and dumb stuff and realizing at a young age that a new surfboard wasn't needed every month, a new glove wasn't needed every month, there was a retirement plan and that wasn't a retirement plan. And so early on I just picked up some investment properties and you know, I think it's a great move for any young individual out there right now. I, I, I spent recklessly at a young age because I didn't have much financial modeling growing up.
Nobody sat me down like I just referenced they need to in a classroom, but they don't and said here's how compound interest works.
I really learned through trial error and as my wife would tell you, a lot of overdraft fees.
But, and I think we're going to get into it. The biggest lesson came later on in life after I've lost millions, I speak publicly about it.
And money can come and go. But one thing that I like to say is, you know, once time spent it, it's gone. So yeah, it's A lot of things have driven me, a lot of things have brought me down and it's, you know, I'm blessed to be rebuilt and, and leading again.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: You know what one of the things I like to talk about, I, I teach cash flow classes here in San Diego. And there's a big difference between spending time spending money and investing time and investing money. With the losses that you've picked up, what kind of characteristics do you do differently today that you didn't do even 15 years ago, just after the meltdown that other leaders or originators can glean from you to say this is the difference between spending and versus investing.
[00:13:02] Speaker C: It's a great question. I, I think my kids actually learn are better to ask about this because they went through as I would say, I, I like to put it, we were the family in the community that used to sponsor everyone to the family that needed to be sponsored. Okay. So some of my kids had some really hard knocks during that time and it, it caused them to save for the Rennie the rainy day. Okay. I know now after what I've been through and kind of like what I put the family through almost to a fault, I'm so disciplined to saving. Okay. And I say almost to a fault because I live a blessed life, I live a great life. But I live in fear every day that the rug is going to be pulled out from underneath me again.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: So that fear or that rug pull, if that's.
You're 23, you have investment properties, you start to believe you're entrepreneur of the year. So you try out all these different entrepreneur places but at some point you end up back in mortgage. Can you just talk about going from 23 to when you had to go back work for other people in the correspondent wholesale space and what that climb looked like where all of a sudden you're working for a big name like Bear Stearns. And I think that sort of gets us to where you were saying the, the part of your life where you're sponsoring others in the town.
[00:14:27] Speaker C: Yes.
So kind of a Cliff Notes version. Okay. Through college really was just working at an investment company for real estate investment company.
From there transition to a small little broker shop.
And then I tried to get out of the business, get back in this was probably early 90s.
Went to work for Chase. Okay. On the wholesale and correspondent. Wholesale and correspondent lending side of things and built a great career. I, I climbed the corporate ladder there, got into some middle management. I would say it's because I worked hard. My wife would say it's because I kissed ass.
It's probably somewhere in between.
But I did build a solid team, a solid region and was always, you know, kind of on the top of things. Okay.
There's always a leader on top of the leaders Board chairman's club at Chase. Had a great career there. And then from Chase, you know, again, we'll cover some of this. It was really the.
I may have stayed there too long. I may have not. You know, when you stay somewhere 10 years, you learn a lot. But you also don't have the outside influence that you could learn from other companies that do it just as successful.
But from Chase I went to a company called Bear Stearns and yes, that is Bear Stearns of the mortgage meltdown.
I took a great offer to go there. I brought my team with me.
I even had them buy all my Chase stock and everything like that and convert it to bear. So yeah, I was, if you Google my name on the very back pages of Google nowadays, I was the person to close the doors of Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage out in Irvine, California.
So that was quite the humbling experience.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Wow. From your drive from beginning way back in the beginning to earn income back in the 90s. What are some of the follow up systems and that you use either as in retail or correspondent or wholesale that you think that are still appropriate today even with the use of today's tech stack with AI Whatever. But I mean what are some of the systems that you use for follow up that other salespeople either in wholesale, correspondent or retail can use today?
[00:16:52] Speaker C: I'm laughing because when I first got started our follow up system was a yellow pad, a rotary phone and you know we use something called act. I don't even know.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:17:08] Speaker C: Did you really HP12C right?
[00:17:12] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:17:13] Speaker C: And we really didn't know what a CRM system was so we kind of built one out of act.
It was myself, a good friend of mine by the name of George Voight and we just started dialing for dollars out of a mortgage broker shop in the Long beach area and then built it out one day at a time, one thing at a time and created our own system from there, brought some friends in and then before we knew it we had our own little call center.
It's totally different from today. I mean technology plays a large part in everything we do. We actually have a City First Mortgage has its own proprietary tech stack.
We do utilize a lot of the industry standards. I'll give a quick shout out here to Encino. Simple Nexus Prism Matchbox with an EVO overlay and also total expert. That's my plug of the day plus my City first mortgage trick.
But we made it work at the time and it, it was the, I think it was a daily touch, the daily interaction and we made our clients feel like seen and remembered. And that never goes out of style. Okay, it never does. And so we use all the high, you know, self proprietary stuff and all the expensive stuff that we buy on the outside in. But at the day to day it's the daily contacts that keep everything consistent and that's no different than 1990 for us.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I remember uh, Tim Brahim had loan toolboxing. He had an overlay over on at in conjunction with the Mortgage Coach.
Yeah, that's as this is back in 2002 and I was using the Mortgage Coach and the Loan toolbox or in 2002 and, and you're right, it's that daily contact of just the follow up on who to touch, who to call. And it doesn't matter whether you're wholesale or retailer. Right. You gotta make those phone calls in order. A tech stack is not gonna be able to replace the actual phone call itself.
Right.
So yeah.
So when you're talking about your experience, you know, you're quickly moving up the ladder in wholesale and in correspondent lending in retail now as a presence. What are the similarities and differences right now that you find in that you.
[00:19:30] Speaker C: Guys have a lot of great questions. And real quick, some people know this, we've talked about it publicly. But you mentioned mortgage coach.
This is how old both Dave Savage and I are. We sat at the same four space cubicle at our first mortgage company we ever started at probably in 1989.
Yeah, I know. Who knew, right? We see each other all the time in passing in different tour circuits, I guess you could say with the Mortgage Collaborative, Housing Wire, MBA and mba, all the above.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: But they should study that water bubbler.
[00:20:03] Speaker C: Yeah, right. Well, there's also a couple others in that room. One gentleman now is running, oh my gosh, was running Rocket and there's another one out there too. So we've all done okay. But at the same time, there's been a lot of casualties in our business. But to answer your question, what's similar or different?
Wholesale in my younger days taught me speed and in scaling and spreadsheets and retail taught me people, purpose and patience really. Okay.
In wholesale it's just volume all the time and relationships are kind of arm's length. And in retail it's, it's the face to face grind, it's the families, it's helping someone either buy their first home or refinance into a better position.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: I mean we have really the, the first half, little bit of a fall back up on top. I think the audience is on sort of a cliffhanger here of where the next drop is. And so what we'll do is we'll give everybody a chance to catch their breath. We're going to go to a quick commercial break here from our sponsors since John was able to give his and you need tech these days. And so we'll come back on the other side and we'll get deep and personal with John and we'll hear the rock bottom and then how he was able to turn it all around and into the president he is today. So let's hear from our sponsors.
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[00:23:14] Speaker A: So coming out of this success a second time around you hit bare sterns and obviously the financial crisis. Last one to shut the door. But then personally I know your, your world was rocked but at the same time almost a great story of divine inter whatever the right word would be where your do. You're at a, a doctor's appointment about an ear, right. And your doctor picks up on something. At least it was early enough but not early enough where you didn't go through.
Sounds like nine months of hell is just the beginning of, of hell you went through. Can you take us for all of survivors that, that have had to go through what you've gone through and, and just get real deep on what that part of the journey was like.
[00:24:01] Speaker C: Yes, absolutely.
I diagnosed with stage three colon cancer at a very young age. Okay.
I had, and this is my, this is could be used as a platform here to when in doubt get checked out. Okay.
I had zero history of cancer in my family.
We were, we were diving a lot over in Catalina which is where we took our kids every year for a week for vacation. I had a little blood in my stool. I went to anal, I went to urgent care.
They said you have an anal fissure. Okay, no big deal, get back in the water the next day. At that time I didn't have any fear of sharks and blood in the water, but I do now.
We.
We were home for a couple weeks and I had an ear infection. Okay. I went into the doctor's office, got my prescription for my antibiotics, literally had my hand on the doorknob, prescription for amoxicillin in my left hand, doorknob on the right. And he starts talking to me about Catalina. I'm like, oh, I had a little scare there, had some blood in my stool. And he's like, let me check you out. And we had a little bit of a friendship. I'm like, come on, Doc, you know, don't really need to be checked out. And he's like, no, I insist. So without too much information, I dropped my drawers. He checks for my fisher, and his quote was, you know, I don't like the fish. I don't like the fact that your fissure is still there and you're bleeding. Stop. I'm going to put you in for a colonoscopy.
So out I went with the referral for the colonoscopy.
I went in for the colonoscopy, they biopsied it.
I went in about a week later, they biopsied.
Turned out it was cancerous.
So then it set up an entire treatment plan where, where I got a phenomenal team of doctors with my gastroenterologist, with my oncologist, with my surgeon, and kind of just build out a game plan.
It started with a brutal surgery where I basically got cut from my sternum to my pelvis and had two feet of my colon removed.
And at the time, you know, I had four kids underneath, the age of, I believe 11 or 10. At the time, it felt like I was getting hit by a freight train. There were some stories done on it, and my doctor was asked, why would you put a 30 something year old in for a colonoscopy, okay. With zero history of cancer in the family? And his simple response was, I had a hunch, okay?
So with that hunch, he literally saved my life.
Yeah. And it was that day I felt like, you know, when I got the call, I'll never forget that evening. I got the call and it felt like I was getting hit by a freight train. Okay. I didn't even know what to think.
I'll never forget my. My wife just dropping and kind of crying and not realizing what to do. And my buddy called me on the phone saying, dude, if you don't get going, you're going to be late for the softball game. So I literally was out Playing softball within an hour of knowing my diagnosis and just put it all into kind of God's hands and my doctor's hands and said I was going to deal with it the next day.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: Can you obviously, wave of emotions hits, fork in the road, metaphorically hits. You quoted, you gave a great quote, your oncologist said to you. Some wartime analogy, I think. No, absolutely.
[00:27:38] Speaker C: Yeah. He. The next day, after playing softball, right, we're all emotional. We get the kids to school, we meet with him at, you know, 9 o' clock in the morning, and he reviews my colonoscopy report and everything, and he sits us down because all we were doing is, you know, you play medical MD on the web and this is Internet was barely even out right now, and we're doing all the research and it's a 50% mortality rate. And that's kind of one of the things my wife led with, right? And he basically points to these two things on his desk and he's like, okay, so there are a hundred soldiers going to war and 50 will die and 50 will live. Which one are you? And without even blinking, I just said, I'll be one of the 50 who live.
And he said, good. He goes, then don't worry about the other 50%. Worry about yourself. He said, we're going to give you the mule's dose of chemo and see where it goes from there.
They also used a trial drug at the time called thalidomide, and now it's used regularly in colon cancer treatments. So I kind of feel good about that, that I was the guinea pig and that became my life for the next, gosh, I'll say two years, because I don't care who says what about chemotherapy.
It's grueling, it's brutal, and it's not over when it's over. It takes such a toll on your body.
It's. Once you stop, you still have a year or two to recover from it. It just changes everything, the way everything tastes. It changes your whole insides, but at the same time, it's the worst thing for you, but the best thing for you. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of people that pass every single day from colon cancer and other cancers. But knock on wood, I'm here to tell my story.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: When it takes everything out of you, do you find it's harder to pick up the work at the pace you feel like you were before? Or is it harder to be the dad that you feel like you should be versus the one you're actually capable of during the chemo it was a.
[00:29:45] Speaker C: It'S a little bit of both. Okay.
You just, you appreciate every day, okay? There's no doubt about that. This business does give you the flexibility to.
And I don't think a lot of people realize it. Yes, I could attend children's events, I could coach softball teams. But yes, I also have the ability to work till 11 o' clock at night and wake up at 5 in the morning and start working so everything gets done okay.
I checked out okay. Not on purpose, but through the surgery and for probably about a year, year and a half, treatment just got so bad that I'd go on a Thursday, receive my treatment, go lay in bed from basically Thursday night till probably Monday morning.
Meanwhile, my wife was running the family, running the show, doing everything. I still think it's to this day, I believe not just with me, but with others. I think it's harder on the spouse and the family than it is on the survivor or the person being treated.
Your mind does an amazing job of blocking things off.
And just when I would start to feel better again, probably like Tuesday night, Wednesday, I'd be back in for treatment again on Thursday.
[00:31:02] Speaker B: Going on topic, but kind of off topic at the same time.
What do you think is going through your wife's head? I mean, you know, a lot of times, for those of us who, who are, you know, we're married to our jobs and our spouses are just along for the ride, especially in the mortgage industry. What do you think is going on through your wife's head during this time of cancer? You know, you're, you, you're, you're scaling the wall of, of success in wholesale correspondent lending. And I know this wasn't one part of the questions, but how, how does she manage this with you as long with the kids and then you got your business as well? How, how do you think she's helping you out? I mean, as a help me for.
[00:31:44] Speaker C: Scenario, it was a tribe, okay?
We lived in a community that gave us a tremendous amount of support. Okay.
She is meticulously organized, okay. So kept everything on a strict schedule, so to say.
I don't think our kids noticed a difference besides just dad wasn't going to a game or dad wasn't know, waking up early to make breakfast.
And I think that, you know, if you had to ask her, she probably would have said, well, his life insurance was a lot of money. No, I'm kidding, I'm joking. She'll probably listen to this.
But no, I, I think it's just, you know, she, she will Tell you years later that she did not even flinch. And it's only because she couldn't.
Right.
She just didn't know any better. And the only thing that we could do is just get through it.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: What a, what a hero.
You mentioned in different cycles you've gone through, you've brought up your parents or even your wife's parents. Obviously they are important in any bounce back you have and I think sometimes they're not not there. You talk about, can you just talk about how as our audience is getting older. Right. Unless you know, parents are, are starting to become deceased. Like I think they're starting to go through life events with a parent now without a parent. Do you have any reflection on doing that throughout your life?
[00:33:18] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I cherish every moment of every day.
Even my kids or, or family members will they tease me about. I always have these moments of reflection. Okay.
And I'm, I wear my emotions on my sleeve, okay. I tell my kids, my grandkids, my friends, everyone that I'm surrounded by. My, my wife, my brother, you name it, good friends, cousins, how much I love them and appreciate them.
Not just because I feel like I have to, but because I, I want to. And it's truly how I feel. Okay. Tomorrow is not promised.
I've had a close scare years ago and again I've.
You live after something like that happens to you.
You know, lots of things change, but nothing changes. But the one thing that affects you the most is now every cough is lung cancer, every headache is a brain tumor. And as much counseling as I've gone through and as much medication as I take to, to control my thoughts nowadays, you're still never going to be able to push that out. And I've talked to a lot of survivors about that and some people call it survivor guilt. I just call it ramification of being knocking on the door and close. I guess you could say, sorry, I didn't mean to bring everyone down here. But it, it's truly a, it's an emotional process. Right. And not just for myself, but also for everyone that I surrounded by.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: So then the, we have the first rock bottom. Then this is hitting with your cancer diagnosis and then the mortgage meltdown hits and that's really a second rock bottom this time. There's certain situations in your life, but your older kids are seeing it this time. They've already experienced your sickness, but now there's a financial crisis. With your vocation and your job, what was your, what was your life like in your family and what was your life like in business, it was hell.
[00:35:29] Speaker C: I'm not gonna sugarcoat it.
You know, we, I will get emotional here. We went from living in an upper middle class neighborhood with at the time, million dollar homes that are now three or four million dollar homes, to living out of a hotel with my wife and four kids just so we could stay in the school district. Okay. There was a point in time that I didn't know if we were going to get evicted from the hotel. Okay. I had to go ask a friend's mom to borrow 300 bucks just to get me through the nights.
My kids were old enough to see it and that made it even worse. I think you feel like you failed them, but it also became fuel for me. Okay. I wanted them to see that failure isn't final. Okay. It's, it's feedback.
I, I tell people I've had more comebacks in Rocky Balboa just with worse hair and no soundtrack. Okay. And you know, my son once asked me, dad, how many rock bottoms are there? Right. Because we, we hit a few along the way.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: That's gotta be the ultimate stomach punch, right?
[00:36:43] Speaker C: Yes, absolutely.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: So with those rock bottom stomach punches, a lot of life, especially the loneliness of entrepreneurship or running a company, but in the mortgage industry, loan offices are entrepreneurs. You know, we were, you were certainly an entrepreneur type. Feel when everything's ripped away.
They talk a lot about the morning. How, how were you able to get up in the morning and get out of bed. And get out of bed, either with purpose or get out of bed and trick your mind into excitement. Like what, what was that? Driver.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: In the morning.
[00:37:17] Speaker A: Every morning when you're waking up in a, in a hotel room and, you know, it should be a, you know, a, a master bedroom.
[00:37:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
I would say slowly, painfully, and with a lot of gratitude is how I woke up. Okay. When you've had a brush with death, your perspective changes and every day feels like a bonus round. And I never really lost sight of that.
I rebuilt by focusing on my family first, face second, and my career third.
And funny enough, that's when the career took off again.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: Do you consider that, I don't mean to make light of it, of the saying, but coming to Jesus moment.
[00:38:03] Speaker C: No, there's, that's a very serious thing. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I, I grew up, I didn't grow up religious, but we became somewhat religious. Okay. Throughout, you know, our kids, younger's lives, I had people that prayed over me, prayed with me, and it wasn't until I really started believing myself. Okay.
That, you know, I saw it Change, Okay?
We talk about rebuilding and stuff. And, you know, every morning was a mental battle for me. Okay? You wake up to the same problems, the same financial problems, but you have to choose to move forward anyway. Okay? And I just did. And I'd get up, I'd put my shoes on, and I'd remind myself just to take one more step forward today.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: How did you use the term God things to retrain your mind to how things could happen for the better for you?
[00:39:14] Speaker C: You guys have a lot of great questions. Have you done this show before? No, I'm kidding.
That actually came from my wife. Okay. During the worst moments, when something small went right, I remember her saying, she said, that's a God thing.
And it re. It retrained my brain to look for the grace instead of the grief. Okay. And when you've been through trauma, you've been through all the things that I'd been through. Your mind searches for deep danger. And the God things reminded me to search for hope instead.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: I often encourage people, you know, that have gone through some of the things you're going through can't be there. But I, I love the line.
Like, you could be on the five yard line and you don't know it. So you have to keep pushing like, like you're on that five yard line and, and the only thing I can tell you is as an outsider, you may be on that five yard line because I'm sure it doesn't feel like it, you know, know, day after day as people are climbing in this industry. Right. And it, it's been a tough run, probably some say the toughest because of longevity, not the toughest as far as suddenness. But do you have any advice for people in our industry trying to grow their career around being on the five yard line from what you've learned from your trials and turbulations?
[00:40:41] Speaker C: I do, Mike. And I want to say one thing also that I remembered from my wife from years ago about the God things. Okay. And she said, God things are small miracles that remind us the big ones are still coming. Okay?
God things are small miracles that remind us that the big ones are coming. And that just basically I just put that in the back of my mind and thought about that every day. And before I answer your question, like, it wasn't just that easy. Okay. I went through my own depression, den. I went through my own doubts. But it was literally my family and my kids that kept me putting one foot in front in front of another.
So anyway, long winded answer for your question about you Know what's my advice and what have I learned in the presidency role? First off, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
And I would say this, and I, and I knew this at a young age, but every great leader out there in the world, their resume includes a few rock bottoms. Okay, it does. I mean, I'm not going to name names for political reasons, but many people have gone bk a few times. But the one thing that I've learned, okay, is never stop learning, never stop asking.
Even at the highest level, I still look for mentorship because mentorship is needed. I have several important members in my life, including our owner and CEO Garrett Van Wagner.
He takes the time to this day to teach me new things on a daily, weekly basis. And the trick isn't avoiding the fall like I did. It's learning how to rise without losing your humility.
[00:42:28] Speaker B: What are some of the things then to, to rise without losing humility?
How do you motivate? How does anybody motivate themselves to rise without losing humility? Especially in a business where, for example, a lock's about to expire. But you know, with underwriting, it's not going to go past that date. The, the, you know, you're, you know, you're. We, we needed five underwriters, but we only got four. So underwriting times just went from three days to five days. You got salespeople climbing after you got apps climbing after you. I mean, how do you rise above as, I mean, playing Monday morning quarterback, there's lots of people going, I can do the job as a leader and a president and do that. But then you're in it. You're like, how do you, how do what's going on through your head through those situations and how do you motivate yourself to live consistently for yourself in that, in those moments?
[00:43:26] Speaker C: Yeah, in, in all my battles and primarily both my battles with the meltdown and with the cancer, I just kept the same mindset, and that's to survive the day in front of you. Okay, when you're sick or broke, your goals don't shrink to the next sunrise or the next day. I didn't think about a five year plan. I thought about five hours from me and what I could do to help that moment.
And in the back of my mind, you know, the things that I always just kept in the back of mind that motivated me were my kids.
I wanted them to see that pain is temporary and that persistence is forever.
And that's the one thing that I think I taught them and the people that I'm surrounded by I'd also like to go on and say, like, looking back in that moment, I, I refuse to let my kids see me quit because that would have given them the permission to do the same.
Okay. And I think that's a valuable lesson we all learned from it.
[00:44:30] Speaker A: These are very valuable lessons and unfortunately one of the biggest Achilles heels and I think what keeps the mortgage industry from advancing the way it really could, should is it always seems to be in 30, 60, 90 day mindsets.
What did we close the last quarter? What did we close the last month? What did our software do for us? What did this vendor do for us?
So moving forward and thinking bigger from here, you take this story and how are you going to use it to. And you're now saying it again, which my guess is it will re. Energize you over the next couple weeks, months, et cetera, to, to mag. To amplify it. How do you see John Russell's story inside Citi first and inside the industry as you continue to grow your name?
[00:45:29] Speaker C: Huh? You know, I, I just think in mortgage and in life, you know, the highs don't last, but neither do the lows. And the trick is to save, stay the same person throughout both.
Okay, enjoy the ride, but don't spend like, you know, the highs are permanent or the lows are permanent. Right.
We like to say when it's good, save when it's bad. Serve and treat people well on the way up because you'll meet them again on the way down, trust me.
And I think that, you know, we're going into, you talk about the 30, 60, 90, and we're going in this. I. Uncertain times and especially today, a little bit of a disconnect in the market with the feds lowering, but rates increasing and all those things. And I just think it's just stay consistent throughout the process.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: John, before we close out, I want to, I want to, I want to go through a day in the life or a week in the life of John Presley. Because what's different about your situation is that you have time to reflect over life's choices.
In other words, not the choices that you've made, but choices others or things have made for you, whether you liked it or not.
And so this leads us to believe, for those of us who haven't necessarily gone through those same physical choices or financial.
What does your day look like, whether it's in meditation or whether it's in gratitude, in minutes, in hours, I have no idea. But what does your day look like before you get to the office and then through your workday, do you reflect upon that?
And then when the God things happen, you know, life happens for you, not to you.
How do you get through those? And then what does the end of your day look like? Whether it's in conversation with your wife, your kids or whatever it would be, what does that look like on the daily.
[00:47:31] Speaker C: So fortunately or unfortunately, I do spend a lot of time on the road. So I would say it varies from a home plan to a road plan. But when I'm at home, I spend a lot of morning time with my best friend, my six and a half year old white lab Nala.
We spend a lot of time walking creeks and hills and different areas and exploring every morning. And during that period of time, it's just spent by myself in a quiet place with a lot of prayer. Okay. A lot of reflection and a lot of, I guess you could say, like planning inside my own mind.
My day is structured. I do have. In my role, I have to attend a lot of meetings. But at the same time in my role, my passion has always been building and growing. So I still spend a lot of time cultivating new business as far as recruiting and even some loans here and there that I'll refer to different loan originators.
But there's many times throughout the day I just, I try to stop and take a deep breath. Okay. And reflect upon what's been going on so far and how my day is going.
And kind of, I'm a.
I need, there isn't enough medication out there for my adhd. Okay. So I really, you know, I have to look back midway through the day at my calendar plus I set a timer to my calendar plus I have an assistant to kind of keep me on track of everything.
And I always still have to take a few minutes out of my day at the midday and at the end of the day to make sure I covered all the tasks, so to say. And then at the end of the day, I'm always appreciative. Okay. And I do spend it. I try to unwind every evening. Okay. Whether it's a nice dinner or just watching a binge, watching a show on the couch.
And that's both on the road and at home. I am approaching a birthday here pretty soon and I hope to incorporate into my plan now a little bit more of a workout regimen because my, my dog is slowing down and so am I. And our hour walk in the morning just isn't offsetting the amount of calories I eat every day and burn.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: Obviously you burn a lot traveling around and talking to a lot of loan officers. I can see why a lot of loan officers are now moving to City First Mortgage. It was the tech stack you explained earlier. It's the ability to humanize the purpose and the people that you're working for. So thank you, John, for just getting so personal and making this show a memorable one that will stand out among our collection.
[00:50:15] Speaker C: And.
[00:50:15] Speaker A: And I think it'll cause more and more listeners to tune in and stick with us as we continue our season four. So thank you again, John.
[00:50:23] Speaker C: I appreciate it. And, Mike, if I could just say, you know, my story isn't about tragedy. Tragedy, okay. It's about tenacity. Okay? Life will knock you down. But every time you have a choice, stay there and stand back. Stronger. Build back. Better. Better than ever. Success doesn't come from avoiding the fall. It comes from learning how to rise. I learned that at a young age. And thank you for having me.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: Thank you for joining us on this journey into the heart of mortgage innovation.
Remember, every mortgage has a story, and we're here to help you write yours. If you enjoyed today's insights, please subscribe, share with your network, and connect with us on social media.
Until next time, keep pushing the boundaries and uncovering the stories that drive our industry forward.
