Watch and connect on a topic I believe deeply about. In these times, leaning into vulnerability will massively change your life!

What you get from this edition of LiveTime with Alec:

• Vulnerability, successful people lean into this.
• Don’t be afraid of criticism; the world is KIND!
• Find out what GROUP THINK is…
• How this will help you take advantage of the great opportunity coming your way. Interest rates…

Episode Transcribe

​What’s up everybody.

Oh, masks are so amazing.

 Isn’t it a wild world where we have masks and we walk around? If you go outside, it’s like a zombie apocalypse hit. It’s the weirdest freaking thing. I hate it. Hey guys, thanks for joining, fun to talk to you today. Love to have more of a dialogue than a monologue today, but we’ll see. I’m on LinkedIn right now, checking it out. Sucks I have to look down at my phone to see what’s going on with LinkedIn, but thanks for hanging with me. Vulnerability. Yes. Got super motivated that I even made a really cool little bumper for this and got focused to talk this thing out. Hi Kim. We just hung out a few minutes ago and now we’re hanging out on social. It’s nice to see you.This was an “Aha!” Moment for me in my career, and I hope it will be for you as well and I hope that you can lean into it with me. I feel motivated to talk about it because of social distancing and distance learning that my kids are doing, and effectively my wife’s doing, and just the reality of a digital world. In California, we got the notice that all beaches are being closed, which is going to cause … I’m fully convinced we’re on the edge of a revolution. I know that sounds a little intense, but do you agree with me like a little bit? Like, are you losing it? Like “One person tells me one more thing.” I guarantee someone’s out there like, “I’m going surfing, close my beach.” I know it’s happening.I feel like we’re back in the prohibition days of, you know, we told everyone they can’t drink alcohol and that went really good. Now you’re telling everybody they can’t go to the beach, they can’t go to any park, they can’t go hike. I don’t think Americans are going to take it much longer. What’s up Frank? It’s good to see you, dude. I think we’re going to start rebelling. I don’t know. Could be wrong. Not what you’re here to talk about. Orange County only crazy, yeah, just wait dude, Herman, just wait, it’s going to close everything down. Yeah, Jenna, yes, I’m losing it.Let’s talk about vulnerability. As a show of support, I would love for any of you to comment if you are terrified of video. Terrified. Like it’s amazing, I was just joking with our Hawaii team we’ll go meet face to face with a realtor partner all day long. We’ll go sit down, have cocktails, have a beer sit there. All of a sudden, you go, “Hey, let’s jump on a video call.” They’re like, “No.” Or you’re like, “Ugh.” I’m like, “Whoa, hold on, dude. You would have met with me face to face, no problem, and nothing would have been hidden then. Now you want to do it this way and you freak out?” Right? Yeah. Frank, everyone, Brittany on LinkedIn. Yep. Yeah. It’s amazing. Isn’t it? All of a sudden, this one little camera pops up and we all freak out, but we’ll go hang out face to face all day long with everybody, no problem. Then all of a sudden, can’t do it here/ but I have to tell you that if you’re going to be in sales, sales, a lot of you are in sales.By the way, can we just have a tangent? Everything is sales. Everything, everything is sales. Do you guys agree with me on that? I’m fully convinced that I don’t care what you’re doing, you’re a teacher, you’re selling somebody something I’m serious. You’re selling somebody something. I don’t care what job you do. Pick a job that’s not sales, I’ll wait. Where there’s no sales involved whatsoever. Because you can’t do it. Someone’s going to do it right now, and I know, because I know there are some, okay, whatever. If you’re going to be in sales, you’ve got to be on video, because right now there’s no other way to meet, how are you going to meet your customers? How you meet your clients? You can’t. You got to be on video to meet everybody. That’s just the truth of our reality today.It will change, but it’s the truth of our reality today. It might not change for a very long time. We are not going back as a society to pre-COVID activities. We’re not. You’re not telling me that you’re going to rush right out and go to a restaurant the second they all open up. You’re not telling me you’re going to rush right out and go to a packed basketball game the second this thing opens up. You’re not. Sohrab, thank you. Yeah. The COVID beard. I am fully committed to growing this beard until we are reopened. Reopen America, this is a reopen America rally beard, and I’m going to grow it. I’m trying to like tame it. I’ll just stand further back. Now it looks semi-normal. You can’t see it.Yeah. If you have kids, this is funny, Brian Garrett, if you have kids everything is sales. Dinnertime, bedtime, everything. Yeah. Guys, welcome to the new world. This is where vulnerability wins, because you, as a sales professional, or even you as a leader, it is okay to show vulnerability, guys and gals. I say guys as a generic term. I’m sorry. I’m from SoCal, like “Guys!” It’s sex agnostic. I don’t know. It is okay to show vulnerability. It is okay to say that you don’t know everything. It is okay to step onto the video and say, “I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m going into the pool.” It’s okay. That is where life is. You know how many people think you have to know it all, especially if you’re in sales, the sales fear all the time of “What if I get up and I do a presentation and I don’t know everything, and a realtor or a customer throws a question at me and stumps me, and I’m an idiot?”Guys, I have never had a customer in my life of sales where I went to them and said, “You know what? I don’t know the answer to that, here’s the answer to these things. Give me like five minutes or give me till the end of the day or give me whatever and I will get the answer and come back to you.” I have never had anybody say to me, “Are you kidding? You idiot. I’m not working with you. You don’t know the answer to my immediate question?” Like never guys. Showcasing your vulnerability is what leadership is. It’s what true sales is. It’s what makes you an authentic human.People don’t want to do business with robots. They want to do business with you. The problem is that you’re hiding yourself and all the things you used to be able to do, which was go to networking events, go to broker previews, go to caravans, go to open houses, go into your office, bring a customer into your office, do a face to face loan application you can’t do anymore. Sorry. Pivot. You have to pivot. The game changed. It changed on you. What are you going to do?I had a really fun conversation with another great leader at our company named Brian Kobe. If you’ve listened to the podcast, it’s on there. If you listen to some of our livestreams on my YouTube channel, it’s there. The same conversation which is, it’s okay not to know everything. It’s even more okay not to be good at everything. It’s totally okay. When did it not be okay? When did it not be okay for a leader to say, “I don’t know the answer to that. What’s your thoughts?” When did it not be okay for you to go on video and say, “I’m terrified of this thing. I don’t even know what I’m doing, but I’m here because I have something important to share with you guys.” It blows my mind.In fact, in sales today, if you’re willing to be vulnerable and step into the space, you will make a dramatic impact in the success of your business. Oh, this is great, Heidi. This is a great comment from YouTube. “I was raised never to leave the house without being perfectly coiffed. I don’t know how to pronounce that. I don’t know how to pronounce that. I know what it means. It’s not going to happen on video and yeah, it’s not, it’s not. You can have the best lighting and you can the best microphone. I’m still going to have a light, a bald spot light on my giant forehead. Guys, you can’t have it all, but you can play the game and you can lead and you can put yourself into a vulnerable position to lead.In sales today, it’s not about the old snake oil salesman of the past, or some fancy pitch, or some great commercial. It’s not about any of that stuff. It’s about authentic human connection. If you’re in mortgages, you provide a service, and so you need to show up. It’s amazing. Yeah. This is a good one. “We were born with this face. We got to deal with it.” It’s the same joke I always say. It’s not like you have a stunt double in your loan applications, your face to face loan consultations, you bring in the stunt double? Guys, gals, no. My encouragement for you today is to be okay being vulnerable. Vulnerability wins. Your ability to be vulnerable wins. It will win you more sales, it’ll win you more relationships, more authentic relationships. I don’t know why it’s not okay for you, for us not to be perfect anymore.You know, Shaun makes a good point here and I’ll share it. Because it kind of pivots the vulnerability conversation, but the more vulnerable you’re willing to be and learning and stepping into new spaces, the better you will get. Look, guys, I’m going to cut this in a different direction, check this out. This is my first live stream. This background. I didn’t have the premium version of Stream Yard, which I love the Stream Yard, by the way. I used whatever they had. Then, I didn’t know what I was doing at all.Heidi, this is funny. Thank you. Yeah. Surprise. Look guys, I had my sexy intro with the music starting in 30 seconds. This is what I had when I first went and I was on my phone. Then I figured out what Figma was. I watched a video and I literally changed the colors. See what I did there? Just changed the colors and the text, and then I was like, “Well, wait a minute. I’ll move stuff around. I’ll put my social media things up there. Whoa, what if I did this? Ooh, look, I got my Twitter handle up there now.” Then there was like, boom. Then I got crazy and I’m like, “Oh look, I put graffiti because, and then I put bricks.” Guys, I don’t care how you show up. Just show up and play the game. You’d be surprised how amazing, that logo.My encouragement, how are you going to be vulnerable today in your business? Why don’t you raise your hand and just say, “I don’t know how to do this stuff, but I’m going in.” There are so many amazing people right now who are just afraid to show up and who are trying to master the behind the scenes bullshit. I know I shouldn’t cuss, but I had to land it. You had to hear me, because it’s garbage. It’s a lie that you got to have the graphics and the banner and the music, and then you can do, stop it. Just play. First of all, don’t you realize that the world and human beings, as an individual, are way more graceful than you think they are. They are not jerks. When I released my podcast, my first episode of the podcast, I got like 50 people who five starred me, gave me a really nice comment, and I got one person who one starred me, which I don’t know who it is, because you don’t even know.Guys, the world is kind. Your digital community, your friends and family around you on the digital ecosystem are kind. They love you. They care about you. They’re going to support you. You still got to go into the deep end and start swimming and paddling and kicking. You’ll get stronger and you’ll get better. Then, you’ll learn fun, cool, dorky stuff.I have a really fun live podcast coming out with Rene Rodriguez. One of the things that I know, if you don’t know who Renee is, start the Google machine and go find this guy. He’s a very talented speaker, presenter, thought leader, just a really talented man. One of the things that we’re going to be talking about is group think, group think. As you start to get vulnerable, as you start to admit you don’t know things. As you start to open up the opportunity to potentially learn new things, you can find yourself in new groups and these new groups of people who are watching YouTube channels about how to do video, just these are the people that are going to inspire you and lift you up.It’s incredible, I mean the amount of people in my ecosystem that I’ve found through stepping into this kind of more social, more vulnerable, more live place has been incredibly cool. I’ve been inspired. I’ve been educated, I’ve been trained and taught. I’ve been learned all the fun things because of the people I’m surrounding myself with. The same thing is available to you. The same exact thing is available to you. Does that make sense? I am giving you 100% permission to be okay to be vulnerable, to put yourself out there in a position of vulnerability, because that’s what great leaders do. That’s what great salespeople do. That’s what successful people do.If you’re in the mortgage industry, there is an unbelievable opportunity coming at us right now. I want to paint a little bit of a picture. The most unbelievable opportunity is coming at us. All right? I can’t claim that I invented this or that I knew this before, because again, not that smart, just in the pool swimming. That’s why you’re hanging out with me. Anthony Shay, our CEO at LoanDepot called it. He watches annual refinance churn, which is a stat people don’t watch. They don’t look at the refinance churn of the industry. They look at total volume, purchase volume. They don’t look at refinance churn. My wife’s texting me. I’m not sure if I should look at it or just, I swiped up and I don’t know if I’m going to pay for that, but I don’t know. Here we go. One of the things that he acknowledged that, so here’s the fact, right? Right now, approximately there’s $11 trillion of mortgage debt in the United States. I’m going to let you sit on that one for a minute. 11 trillion.Man, that’s a lot of mortgage debt. Last year, the entire industry, the entire mortgage industry, not just LoanDepot, funded four trillion. Okay? Guys, if this world normalizes, because we’re in insanity land still, people aren’t working. It sucks. As we go back to work, one of the most incredible thing is going to happen. Interest rates are likely going to be lower than they’ve ever been in the history of the United States. They’re low now. They’re great now. You should look to get a refinance or a purchase right now, they’re amazing. I think they’re going to go lower. Don’t wait if by the way, someone’s going to hear this and be like, “Oh, then I’m waiting.” Don’t wait, because I don’t have a crystal ball and if I’m wrong, you’re going to be like, “Alec told me to wait.” And now you hate me. Don’t do that. You got to get a deal in front of you, take the deal.I think they’re going to go lower, which means of the $11 trillion of outstanding mortgage debt, we could see an environment where six to seven to eight trillion of that debt is in the money. Meaning, they have a higher rate and they should refinance. As that world emerges post COVID, and as that seven, eight, six, probably $7 trillion of mortgage debt turns into money as rates go lower, the industry only funded 4 trillion last year, that includes purchased business. I’m just talking about refinance opportunity. There’s not enough money in the game, in the system, in the matrix, we funded 4 trillion. How are we going to flex up to eight plus purchase? It’s going to be an insane time. Your opportunity is directly connected to the level of influence and relationship you have with the people around you. If you want scale, if you want opportunity, if you want to change your life and the lives of thousands of people forever, you need to step into vulnerability. You need to put yourself in a place where you can be found. In a place where people are going to judge you again.I don’t even care what you sell. You got to put yourself out into the public world on video in all your glory. You need to say, “I’m here. I have a purpose. I have a mission. this is what I believe in as my business.” You need to be in the water. Because when this opportunity comes, we’re in the midst of it right now, too. As the opportunity expands, as it expands, you could have the career of your life if you just got vulnerable and got into the water where the people are.I don’t know how else to say it guys. That’s it. It is coming. If you surf or if you’ve been in surfing or if you watched a surfing video, it’s called a set. You can see it out in the ocean. You can see these mountains kind of rolling towards you and you go, “Oh man, the big one’s coming.” The water starts getting sucked out and you got two options. You can turn and go into the shore, paddle like hell, just get out, get out of the water, because the big one’s coming. Second option is you go towards the set. You try to beat it. You try to get there before it breaks so you can come over it. Because sometimes it’s too big, it’s too scary, you don’t want to ride it. You got to charge it. You got to charge it, and you’ve got to get up and get over it before it crashes, or the third thing. The third thing is you maneuver your surfboard, you get it right in the spot, and as the wave crests, the biggest wave we’ve ever seen in the mortgage industry, you’re there to ride it.You got to be vulnerable. You got to put yourself out where the waves are. Out in the place. You have the best two, three year run of your entire career ahead of you, but vulnerability wins. Not overproduced BS, not overproduced content where it’s commercialized, not when you hire a thousand people to help you produce commercials because humans are sick of commercials. They’re sick of it. They don’t want to see it anymore. None of us do. We are literally on Netflix to hide from commercials. If we ever watch TV again, we’re like, “Oh I can’t fast forward.” We hate it. I see so many mortgage professionals over scripting over producing their content. It’s a mistake. It’s a mistake. You look like white noise. You’re being ignored.Be vulnerable, be authentic, be real, and you will captivate opportunity like you’ve never had in your entire career. You hear me on this? Hear me on this. Don’t worry about the logos and the videos and the graphics. Don’t, don’t. Jump in. This is from Jason in Hawaii. He would know. In the right wave, the spot makes it a no paddle takeoff. You just drop in and stand up. That’s what we’re facing right now in our industry. That’s where I’m encouraging all of you to go. I’m pushing you in there. I’m yelling at you on social media, get vulnerable. There are so many tips and tricks out there, guys, on the YouTube and on my own channel about how to give yourself more confidence. I’ve talked about lighting and camera angle, and microphone and recording and all that stuff, all that stuff’s out there. You can Google it all. You can YouTube it all. You can learn it all. None of it matters if you don’t turn on the camera.You know, Gary V has been talking about this for quite some time. He would always say, and some of his caveats and I disagree with him. He would always say, “If video’s not your thing, then write articles or do audio and do podcasts and only do audio.” I agree to that to a degree. I agree with that to a degree, but I’m going to challenge it. I’m going to challenge it because I do think video is for everybody, because human connection is for everybody. It is. I don’t know how else to say it. I think if you’re going to be in direct sales, if you sell things, you don’t have a choice. You either play in the video space or you change industries. Because it’s going to roll you over. You might as well change on your own terms.I’m sorry if that sounds super harsh. I just like heard that in my head and I was like, “Ooh, you’re bringing, bringing the heat right now dude. Back it up a tiny bit and calm down.” As Brian said on LinkedIn, “Sorry, not sorry.” I care more about our great salespeople in this industry than offending you with that comment. I care more about your ability to have the success you’re capable of than if I offended you, because now you’re like, “Wow. He said I should have to be on video.” Yeah, you do. That’s my encouragement for you today. Turn on the camera, get vulnerable. It’s super okay. You have my permission. You don’t need the stupid graphics. You don’t need the brands. You don’t need the pictures. You don’t need anything. Okay?You just need to have the light on and the camera on and you can talk to your people and you just share your message about what you’re passionate about, what you care about, why you’re in this industry. What are you doing this to help people today? Tell your story and you will absolutely transform your life and your career. Does it make sense? That’s all I got for you, my friends. If you have any questions, I’ll take them. Other than that, I’ll leave you to have a wonderful rest of your week social distancing at home, with all the beaches closed. I hope you hug your loved ones and I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful week and weekend. See you on the internets.