Year In Review

November 13, 2025•6 min read

Hey Mortgage Originators & Teams!

If you have BIG dreams and goals, they won't come true by luck. You'll need determination, persistence, and a solid plan to get there.

Here's why I say that...

Have you heard of Napoleon Hill?

He's the author of Think & Grow Rich, the book that's responsible for making more millionaires than any other book ever published.

In the book he documents his 20 year in-depth study of the world's richest men alive and found they all shared the same 13 keys to success... one of which is organized planning.

The Richest Men In The World

For two decades, Hill interviewed the richest men of his time, many of them interviewed multiples times and many he became friends with.

Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Charles Schwab and hundreds more... these were like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and the Forbes list back in his day.

Deemed Failures In Life

But what a lot of people don't know is that Hill also studied thousands of people who were deemed failures in life.

One Thing Was Clear...

The people who failed in life had little or no plans... and the people who succeeded had organized plans... with the BIGGEST accomplishments requiring more sophisticated plans and project management.

"You are engaging in an undertaking of major importance to you. To be sure of success, you must have plans which are faultless." Napoleon Hill

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning no faith and 10 meaning absolute 1000% certainty, how would you rate your plans and skills to hit the BIG Goals/Targets 🎯 you have for next year?

From Zero To 350 Loans Closed A Month

Back in 2012 I took the same Goal/Target 🎯 Setting & Organized Planning process I'm about to show you and used it to start a 9 loan officer call center from nothing. This was for a large national retail and wholesale lender and the department didn't even exist until I started it.

We went from nothing to closing 350 loans a month with 9 LOs, 4 processing assistants, and 6 processors.

Before that, back in 2009, I took 10 people who had just graduated from college and used the same process to get each one of them closing at least 10 loans a month within their first 90 days on the job.

In 2000, I used this system and $2,000 to start a marketing company with my friend Sonny. We went from nothing to $100,000 a month in 6 months and developed a proprietary intellectual property we later sold.

The person who taught me this system in 1996 had used it to build his business empire from scratch. He sold his businesses when he was 32 and retired from working. He was worth $14.5 million back then. (The person who taught it to him is the creator of this system.)

This system works and I'm happy to share it with you because I hope it brings you greater success!

Can You Name Something More Important Than This?

What we're really talking about here is your life, your dreams, aspirations and desires for you and the people and causes you care about.

In the first article of this series, I shared an overview of this system and the purpose behind it.

In the second article, we looked at how you can use questions to direct your FOCU$ towards solutions and good feelings that pull your Goals/Targets 🎯 closer to you.

Now we're going to do an exercise called...

The Year In Review

This is very simple.

Get away from all distractions (even phone notifications) for at least 45 minutes. Depending on the number of goals you have this year and their size, you may need more time. If so, it's ok to break your Year In Review into more than one session. The key here is to be free of distractions so you can go deeper into thought.
Pull out your list of Goals/Targets 🎯 for this year. (If you don't have any in writing, that's ok for now. Just write down a few things you had in your mind as goals or things you wanted to accomplish this year, whether you accomplished them or not.)
Now go through your list and sort them into one of two categories: Things you accomplished or things you have not accomplished.
Go through each one you accomplished and jot down a few notes. What happened? Why did you hit these Goals/Targets? 🎯 Did you face any adversity you had to power through?
Do the same with the ones you have not accomplished. Go through each one and jot down a few notes. What happened? Why did you not hit these Goals/Targets? 🎯 Do you see any defeating patterns that are similar to mistakes you've made once or twice (or more) in the past?
What are some of the differences you notice between the Goals/Targets 🎯 you hit and the ones you didn't?
Look for opportunities for improvement in ALL departments:
- Appointment setting
- $ale$
- Marketing
- Processing
- Training
- Recruiting

Year End Pu$h / FOCU$

By doing this exercise, what opportunities for improvement did you see? What could you push to accomplish between now and year-end that would close out the year as BIG as possible?

Go The Extra Mile... For You

If your software can print the following reports (or something similar), go the extra mile for yourself and do this:

Run a report of YTD closed loans by lead source and rank your lead sources by units, volume, and comp/revenue.
Run a report of YTD numbers for the following metrics, by month, with the report to include units, volume, and gross comp/revenue.

Closed loans
UW submissions
Loan registrations
Loan apps/credit pulls
$ale$ presentations made
$ale$ appointments booked
Leads contacted
New leads

Run a report of YTD lead sources with the report to include the following for each lead source:

CPL (Cost Per Lead)
CPCL (Cost Per Closed Loan)
Lead to Closed Loan Ratio

What insights can you glean? What are the top 3-10 things you see right away that could make a BIG difference in your life if they produced improved results?

In the last article, we covered the power of questions. As you look over your numbers for the year so far, what questions could you ask to find the solutions and get the results you want and need?

What To Do Next

"An unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates

If you're a mortgage originator and serious about improving your business next year, do the Year In Review and Year End Pu$h.

If you have the reporting capabilities or your numbers written down, go the extra mile with more detailed analysis. (If you want this type of detailed reporting without you ever having to lift a finger to track it, text REPORTING to 949-867-6410 and let AI book a no obligation, reporting demo with me.)

If you're leading an origination team, you may want to do some of this with your team.

If you're not an originator and work on an origination team, look at the Year In Review and Year End Pu$h from the perspective of your role and responsibilities. Come up with questions that help you hit and exceed your daily performance standards for your job.

Take your time and do it right and then move on to our next step in our annual Goal/Target 🎯 setting process, Your Dreams List.