Written by: Bill Foss

Picture a little child with a workbench, trying to slam a square peg into a round hole. Obviously, there’s going to be damage to the peg and surrounding areas. The same is true of you and your business. If you force your way into your business, there will be collateral damage OR you will shrink to fit the space.

So how can you become truly successful?

Knowing how to do something can give you incremental improvements. Knowing who could help can give you massive leverage improvement. If you know you and align your business with who you really are, then you:

1. Choose the right partners (your who), and
2. Place them in the right seats to align for both of you.

Alignment is Crucial

If you know YOU and you know the ultimate outcome or vision and create a supportive environment by knowing who you serve, who can support you, and HOW to do what you do IN A WAY THAT IS IN ALIGNMENT within and between these three core areas, you and your business become limitless!

Creating an aligned business is challenging because you must dig deep into your history and your past, into who you really are at your core. It’s important to define your values which are often created by the voids in your life. For most of us, our purpose is driven by pain.

Consider this powerful concept: Nature is always trying to balance itself. If there is a high pressure and a low-pressure system, there’s a storm to bring the atmosphere back into alignment.

All too often, people trying to build a business put their rose-colored glasses on and try to achieve the upsides without considering the downsides. The way to create a business so it works is to be in alignment with reality, to see both the upsides and the downsides, to seek balance, and to be aligned with who you really are. When you become empowered and balanced, you create from a position of strength just as nature does.

Initially, when a car is out of alignment it’s no big deal, right? The tires wear out a little, then the ride becomes bumpy, and then a little bumpier. Then, the shaking starts, and the brakes and the steering mechanism begin to wear out as well. The more you drive the vehicle and the more you push it, the worse the situation becomes until it eventually breaks down altogether.

You and I are no different.

If our business is out of alignment with who we really are, we create stress and strain. Things begin to wear out. Eventually, something has to give.

Many people focus on how to do things better or turn to How-To training to fix problems. As you can see in this picture, the whole bell curve comes into effect in How-To training. Out of all people, a few obtain great results, and a few obtain incremental improvement. At the other end of the spectrum, a few people gain little-to-no results whatsoever. The people who have results do so because the information is aligned with who they really are. They are already in alignment with the activities and the changes that need to be made. It’s simple for them.

The vast majority struggle with the information because it is not aligned with who they really are and worse, they don’t know who they really are. The key is to adjust and adapt the information in a way that aligns it with who you really are, or else the information will go unused. Worse, it could, if used, deliver poor results. In a very simplistic way, this causes what I call the Shiny Lure Syndrome.

You choose a course or a coaching program and are excited about it. You begin to implement the lessons learned. Then you don’t see results right away. The enthusiasm wanes. And the next thing you know, you spy another great marketing program or maybe a new company to go to because the lure of the greener grass is stronger than staying on the course you’ve chosen. So, you start down a new path only to find once again the excitement wanes and the pattern repeats. Following the shiny lure has led you to stagnant growth and little-to-no implementation of solid growth-building practices.

As you chase shiny lures and new training or new technology or a new marketing program you will suffer the roller coaster ride. There is famine and feast and famine: too much money, not enough money, too much business, not enough business, too much free time, not enough free time, and every time you try to improve this situation, you add more stress and overwhelm because you’re trying to fix a problem by piling more on top of it. That is never a recipe for success.

And we don’t have a life because we’re too busy worrying about our business. And when we’re at our business, we’re worried about the time we’re not spending with our family. Then you get into self-judgment and comparison. We start to feel like a failure and see ourselves as not good enough. Then behold, a guru is going to teach you to fix yourself to try harder, push through, reprogram you. We pile ice cream on top of dog crap, more great sounding solutions on top of a faulty business model. Then what? You leave projects unfinished. You begin to leave loose ends because you don’t want the self-judgment of fear of rejection of what you are putting out there to cause feelings of unworthiness. Maybe you are good at forcing your way through the pain of change. Maybe you keep your nose to the grindstone. AND, there is one more insidious trick your brain will still pull out of its bag: you trick yourself, proclaiming loudly in mental warning, Your Success May Be Your DOWNFALL!!

This one is painful for me. It drives me to coach on this topic of business alignment. You see, I had by all measures, succeeded. I had the fastest-growing business in the country. We were at around six million dollars in revenue. Happy family. Nice car. Condo in the mountains. The good life.

What wasn’t visible was the thought spiral that had planted itself. What I heard every day inside my head was a litany of negativity, Someday people will see you are not that good, Bill. You’ll be found out as the fraud that you are. That little voice came and went. Eventually, it came more often and feelings to match the thoughts began to take hold until one day, literally, my world came crashing down! The imposter syndrome was the culprit. At the time I did not understand it. Nothing in coaching or training had prepared me.

I wasn’t just thinking about being a failure, I was acting out the thoughts with avoidance and procrastination. I knew I should be doing something, but I just did not want to. In the end, I learned invaluable lessons about myself and the world I now share with you.

In reality, it is our comfort zone keeping us stuck in this pattern. The brain does NOT like change. It sees change as a threat. When you intend to change, to adopt a big new idea, the brain immediately sets up resistance because it knows how things are. It sees change as a threat to our survival!

And that’s where alignment comes in because you will understand what really drives you intrinsically. Not with motivation from the outside, but from the inside. When you align with your highest values, your intrinsic motivation will help move you beyond the resistance to a better way of life. If you depend on force or external motivation you will struggle. It is that simple. Avoidance and procrastination are minimized. We suffer through overwhelm and frustration because we don’t have time to grow our business and it isn’t doing what we want it to do.

I understand you are already perfect. Do you? Or do you believe you need to be fixed in some way or the other? Do you believe if you could cover up the bad stuff and reprogram the good stuff all would be perfect?

Not so. I used to think it was ME failing. I understand now I am right where I need to be. Newsflash!! It is not you. You may need clarity. You may need a new perspective. You do not need fixing. I believe you also ARE YOU’RE EXACTLY WHERE YOU NEED TO BE!

What is needed is understanding, acceptance, and direction! I cannot describe for you how empowering it feels when you truly understand who you really are, the direction you want to take, and the environment you need to create to live the life you imagine. This is what an aligned business is all about.

To quote from Dr. Suess, “You are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

The system of aligning your business with who you really are, is understanding what makes you, YOU and who-you-really-are! I believe there is an innate purpose within you! If we align with that golden thread, remarkable things happen. The sky’s the limit when you align your passion and purpose and who you really are. There is a genius running throughout your being, and you will align your genius within your business to create a business that serves your life. You will serve your clients and the world at large in a much more powerful way!

Here’s a picture of how you can achieve your goals. What you need is a vision. See Your Vision at the top of the photo.

In the lower left is where you are now.

Become very accepting of where you are because you came from somewhere! That somewhere was on the way to where you are now. Nothing was ever in your way; it was on the way. It was a benefit to you in some way. It gave you the intrinsic power, the inner drive. With a vision aligned with our values and our purpose, we begin a journey. We must become someone different. This is what this stairstep shows. The dotted lines show we don’t know everywhere we’re going.

We begin the journey like a butterfly. A butterfly goes into the cocoon and dissolves itself with enzymes to be reborn as a butterfly. If we were caterpillars and knew we had to go into a dark place and dissolve ourselves to emerge without all our legs, but with wings, would we, do it? Nature protects us. It doesn’t show us the whole way. It shows us what we are ready for next.

This is SO important but difficult to grasp. What’s important for us to do is make a shift from thinking of our vision and where we are to where we’re going, to think from our vision as if we were already living the vision. I suggest we create an avatar with the personality traits, the value system, the vision, and the decision-making process as if we were already living it.

Most people don’t realize we only control our perceptions, our decisions, and our actions. If we can create alignment with:

• self-knowledge,
• clarity of direction,
• and clarity of environment,

our decisions will align with who we are, and success will be much easier to attain.

Clarity of Self-Knowledge

Clarity of self-knowledge is simply understanding your values, purpose, and mission, your innate genius, emotional patterns, and perception.

What Makes You Tick? Are you a goal setter? Or are you a problem solver? Why does it matter? Because goal setters do not like problems and problems solvers do not like to set goals. And this is just one area.

Have you looked back through your life in seven- or ten-year increments? What events shaped your being?

Clarity of Direction

Clarity and direction of vision is the strategy aligned with your values. Once you have a clear vision, your actions will prioritize those values and goals. When prioritizing your values and goals in this way, you are focused on your life aligning with your values and ensuring you are making value-driven decisions.

Do you know your highest value? How about your top three or four in order of importance? Values are your JUICE!

Clarity of Environment

Then, last but not least is clarity of environment. Now, this does NOT necessarily mean the office or company you keep. It means the support structure around you.

What is your team like? What are your tools, technology, and space? What is your financial reporting and investment plan? Who are your ideal clients? What is Your Ideal Market?

Great power comes from alignment! You combine clarity of self-knowledge, clarity of direction, and clarity of environment toward one vision! It is like rays of sun through a magnifying glass!

To recap:

Step one is to understand your history and your top values, then to create a compelling magnetic vision. When you gain clarity of who you will become to live your vision you create a strategy and a prioritized plan to get there, with goals and problems you will solve on your way. Then you act.

Once you act, you gather feedback and adjust the plan.

The Wright Brothers did it right!

Samuel Pierpont Langley had all of the resources and created a bigger engine and bigger wings. They strapped bigger engines on a fuselage of a plane that couldn’t glide let alone FLY.

The Wright Brothers found out what would make the plane glide. Only then did they add the engine.

By aligning your business with who you are we find out how to make your business GLIDE. Your business will take less energy, fewer resources, fewer dollars, and the success will be much greater.

Let’s be honest.

If YOU do not change, nothing will change.

What most people don’t understand is change is difficult, and most people want to feel good.

To build your business to serve your life your way, you need to be willing. It’s the things we try to avoid and we are unwilling to face keeping us stuck. It all begins with aligning with who you really are.

I hope I’ve made a case for business alignment. I hope I gave you a path by understanding who you really are, aligning with a clarity of direction and clarity of your environment to attain a vision that serves your life, your lifestyle, your way. This is what a business is supposed to do.

If you are interested in diving deeper into this concept, I created the Your Business, Your Life, Your Way program for those who want to dive more deeply into creating a business and life that makes you happy. (add link)

Written by: Ruth Lee, CMB

It is suddenly 2022, and I am a fifty-year-old mortgage executive looking to wrap up my career in the next few years. The zombie apocalypse transformed my perspective on work and retirement to focus on what is now most important to me today: my health, my faith, and my family. There will be no hut on a beach passing out margaritas to tourists. Instead, there will be independence and financial freedom focused on my true priorities.

As the daughter of a CPA, I learned the golden rule of smart financial moves very early.  If you spend it, it’s gone forever.  With early success, it was super easy to become numb to the reality of how much was leaving my coffers.  So, after a few years in my 20s spending like it was my job, I learned to identify and avoid wasteful expenses and purchasing depreciating assets. So, while I enjoy my life, I travel and I spoil myself and my family, I have learned to spend with absolute intent.

As I consider my post-Rona future, my questions are very different than a mere two years ago. And I want to share those questions as you define your own smart financial moves. The most important question is, how much is enough? In my youth, I had this gigantic number. When I started mortgage companies, I had different numbers. Now on the other side of a couple of acquisitions and over the age of fifty, I am looking at the finish line and recalibrating. How much money, how many deals, how many networking opportunities do I need to achieve? And my answer, while very personal, is very realistic. I don’t need diamonds and Birkin bags; I need zero debt and enough investment to live comfortably for another thirty to forty years.

Financial discipline combined with compounding interest are the bedrock of your future financial freedom. Smart financial planning is not only about saving and investing, but also about being aware of what is going on around you. If you don’t know about crypto or the metaverse, I understand. But you need to. They will be redefining the investments you’ve made for the first half of your career. So, ensure you are approaching your financial future with a growth mindset and not a fixed one. The mentality of you can’t teach an old dog new tricks is quaint, but not a path to enlightenment, to opportunity, or even to being aware of how to protect what you already have, and unlike the days of old, these answers are all cleverly hidden on the internet.

As you spend time thinking about financial freedom and smart financial moves you need to ask yourself:

• How much is enough?
• What and who are your priorities?
• Do you intend to have a work life until you die?
• What are the challenges and disruptors on the horizon?

Implementation is key. After asking these questions, get serious about how you make it happen. Implementing financial freedom is about discipline and consistency. Much like eating well, exercising, or a constant diet of good information honing your expertise, it isn’t a lumpy path. It’s a lasting pledge to become the person in your brain movie. A steady, reliable approach requires making a promise to yourself about your financial future and having a wide-eyed, realistic understanding of how to achieve it. I don’t know who said it, but hope is a lousy hedge.

Buying a home is one of the biggest financial decisions people make, and it can also be one of the smartest. But with home prices and mortgage rates rising, and home inventory at record lows, many potential homebuyers become discouraged, especially when the media reports doom and gloom is ahead for housing.

While there are some challenges to buying a home right now, the opportunity is still well worth the effort. Many housing experts are forecasting continued home price appreciation this year and beyond.

Knowing how various economic reports and other factors can impact the markets is one of the smartest financial decisions you can make today. This knowledge can help you become a better advisor, increase your level of conversion, and land new referral relationships.

In this article, we’ll discuss some of the most important economic reports and data you need to understand each month, so you can share this critical information with your clients and help them make smart financial decisions for their families.

Home loan rates are inversely tied to a type of bond called Mortgage-Backed Securities, also known as Mortgage Bonds. When Mortgage Bonds improve or move higher, home loan rates decline. And when Mortgage Bonds worsen or move lower, home loan rates can rise.

Inflation is the archenemy of fixed investments like Mortgage Bonds because it reduces their value. Bonds pay investors a fixed rate of return over time. Inflation erodes the buying power of your future fixed return because the cost of goods and services has increased, meaning the fixed amount received will purchase less in the future.

For example, let’s say you lend someone $100,000 at 4 percent. Your fixed-rate interest-only payment is $4,000 per year. Today that $4,000 can purchase a shopping list of goods and services, but over time, prices rise due to inflation so you can’t purchase all of the items on the shopping list with the same fixed amount received. If inflation were to accelerate, the only protection investors have is to increase interest rates so they receive a larger fixed payment in order to offset the more rapid erosion of their buying power.

If inflation is rising, Mortgage Bond investors must be compensated with a higher rate of return to combat the erosion of the bond’s fixed payment, causing home loan rates to rise. As a result, inflation reports are followed closely, as they can have a big impact on Mortgage Bonds and the home loan rates tied to them.

There are two main reports that measure inflation at the consumer level: the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), the latter of which is the Fed’s more favored measure of inflation. These reports have several important similarities, as well as some crucial differences.

CPI measures prices on a fixed basket of goods and has a significant weighting towards housing and out-of-pocket medical expenses. PCE measures prices on a basket of goods but allows for substitutions. These substitutions will be for similar products. An example of this could be the substitution of honeydew melons for cantaloupe melons if the price of one were to rapidly increase due to supply issues. PCE tries to act like a smart shopper would.

Unlike CPI, PCE does not have a big weighting towards housing, which is obviously important, as well as out-of-pocket medical expenses. Instead, PCE focuses on Medicare and Medicaid expenses, which are kept by the government. As a result, PCE can underestimate the real inflation a consumer feels and it typically runs softer or cooler than CPI due to these factors.

Inflation has risen sharply this past year, which consumers have noticed as everyday prices of food, gas, and other items have moved higher. February’s Consumer Price Index released on March 10 showed inflation is at 7.9 percent, which is the hottest reading since 1982 when it was at 8.4 percent. This is a big reason why mortgage rates have moved higher. Keeping an eye on this data can help you explain to your clients what’s happening in the markets.

Rising inflation is a big reason why the Fed’s actions remain crucial to monitor in the months to come, as they will play an important role in the direction of the markets and mortgage rates this year.

Note that the Fed has two levers they can pull for tightening the economy: hiking their benchmark Fed Funds Rate and reducing their balance sheet. The Fed Funds Rate is the interest rate for overnight borrowing for banks and it is not the same as mortgage rates.

Hiking the Fed Funds Rate will actually be a good thing for mortgage rates, as the Fed curbs inflation and preserves the fixed return a longer data bond provides. However, reducing their balance sheet (which means allowing bonds to fall off their balance sheet and no longer reinvesting in them each month) would cause more supply on the market that has to be absorbed. This can cause mortgage rates to move higher.

At their March meeting, the Fed, as expected, raised the Fed Funds Rate by 0.25 percent. They also said they expect to reduce their balance sheet at an unspecified future meeting.

The bottom line is we will want to closely watch how the Fed tries to walk the tightrope of hiking and allowing a balance sheet runoff during 2022.

Understanding housing reports is vital, especially because the media often gets this data wrong, which can lead to fear or hesitancy among your clients.

Existing Home Sales is especially important because it measures closings on existing homes and represents currently about 90 percent of the housing market. This report comes out monthly from the National Association of Realtors and likely shows buyers in the previous two months since it measures closings of existing single-family homes during the month and not contracts.

One piece of data within this report often misinterpreted by the media is the median home price. The median home price is not the same as appreciation. It simply means in this measured time period, half the homes sold above this value and half below. Given that housing nationwide is especially tight for lower-priced homes, it makes sense that the median home price has increased.

In addition, January’s report showed housing inventory is at a near-record low 1.7-months’ supply, whereas a six-months’ supply is more reflective of a healthy housing market. Considering the lack of inventory we have, the pace of sales is actually keeping up quite well, but the media will not tell your clients this.

Appreciation reports, unlike the median home price, give us a reading on how home values are performing. These are very important to not only understand but also to be able to articulate to your clients.

The Case-Shiller Home Price Index is considered the gold standard of appreciation reports and tracks monthly changes in the value of residential real estate. This report is a bit behind, as it is on a two-month delay. It is based on resales of single-family homes, while co-ops, condominiums, and new construction are excluded. The most widely watched reports are the national and 20-city composite indexes. These reports give both a monthly and an annual appreciation figure.

You can use this data to explain the power of appreciation. For example, if we saw 8 percent appreciation on a $400,000 home, your clients would gain $32,000 over the next 12 months in appreciation alone. Remember, buying a home is a financial decision and knowing this information can help you show your clients the financial opportunity.

There are two main employment reports issued each month: the ADP Employment Report and the BLS Jobs Report. These reports measure the most important aspect of the economy: the health of the labor market. They also tell us the rate of job growth or loss, the unemployment rate, and the change in wages.

The ADP Employment Report is a monthly report from Moody’s Analytics and tracks private employment in the US (does not include government jobs). It is based on anonymous and aggregated data derived from nearly 460,000 US companies and approximately 26 million private sector US workers. This report is typically released on the first Wednesday of every month and is viewed as a useful preview to the more detailed Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Jobs Report. ADP can have an impact on the markets, but oftentimes is overshadowed by the more important BLS report that follows two days later.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Jobs Report is a monthly report and it typically comes out the first Friday of each month. It summarizes total non-farm payroll employment in the United States by surveying businesses and households. The BLS Jobs Report is comprised of two surveys to monitor the labor market: The Establishment or Business Survey (Current Employment Statistics – CES) and The Household Survey (Current Population Survey – CPS).

The Establishment Survey (Business Survey) outlines the headline job creation number and employees paid during the sample week, the week that encompasses the twelfth of the month. It also takes into account the birth/death ratio, which tracks the number of new companies created (born) versus companies that closed (die).

The Household Survey is collected through phone calls and visits made to approximately 60,000 households during the sample week. Since the US has over 124 million households, each call represents over 2,000 households. The Household Survey also reports on the rate of unemployment. This is calculated by dividing the number of unemployed individuals into the total labor force.

Monitoring these reports matters because when business is good, companies will be hiring, which can have a big impact on housing. The opposite is also true. When we see decreased job growth or people are fearful about their employment situation, the last thing they will be thinking about is purchasing a home.

As jobs go, so does the economy.

When I first started at MBS Highway and still to this day, I spent hours of my day studying and learning the market. But it wasn’t until I took our Certified Mortgage Advisor course that I really began to understand why it’s so important to have this information.

CMA teaches you about economic and housing reports, candlestick patterns, recession indicators, and how to use mortgage debt to create sustainable lifelong wealth for your clients. This course empowers you to step away from being a salesperson so you can step into being an advisor for your clients. This knowledge has made a powerful difference in my life and my career, which is why I’d like to offer you an exclusive $400 discount for this course. Simply use the code VISION upon signup.

After all, investing in yourself today is the smartest financial decision you can make for your future success.