Episode 7 - Michael Creed - Driven Leaders, Wear Heavy Crowns

Michael Creed is a driven and true entrepreneur, like many, he did not have an easy path and in the mortgage industry, things will always be hills, valleys, and mountains to be conquered. Michael, however, is a force that has built a successful team and processes that has proven results. As a leader, he not only wears many hats, he creates policy runs a team, and has date night without exception every week.   

 

Leighann Lovely  00:19

If you are an HR professional business owner or at the operations level trying to understand what people want. You may be struggling, our systems have been shocked practices have been questioned and culture is the leading conversation. Let's learn how culture is created, sustained, and why it should be the leading conversation when discussing hiring, training and retention. This is the foundation of any business and it's time to address it. So tune in to Let's Talk HR Humanizing the Conversation. We tackle topics that influencers of change need to understand and struggle to overcome every day, such as where to start, and what the new workforce wants and how to attract and keep positive momentum going. I'm your host Leighann Lovely.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:06

I have the honor of speaking with Michael Creed today. Michael Creed is the Branch Manager for Illuminate Home Loans in Brookfield and the Waukesha location, he does much more than just manage. In fact, Michael wears many hats at his job from running his own personal production team to creating systems policies and procedures for branch processing. Michael does it all. In addition, he also coaches, the loan officers and other team leads at his branch working hard to ensure his team is set up for success. As a homeowner before he even graduated college. Michael is very familiar with the pain points that most homeowners and prospective homeowners face. He loves working with clients that are willing to trust his expertise to get mortgages closed quickly, while also improving their quality of life with a holistic financial plan. When at work, Michael is energized by all of his amazing clients and hardworking staff. Outside of work, you'll usually find Michael, rock climbing, alpine skiing, mountain biking, weightlifting, attending church or going on other various outdoor adventures. Michael, it is so exciting to have you on come and talk to me. You've you've done a lot of speaking recently about your formula to this amazing success that you've had. And so I'm excited to have you join me today.

 

Michael Creed  02:40

Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah, so

 

Leighann Lovely  02:42

why don't you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself.

 

Michael Creed  02:46

Awesome. So I am a team lead and also a branch director for illuminate home loans. So I do mortgage lending. And I run a team, a production team that Michael create team then also oversee several other brands, brands within our brand. That's really kind of how we lead in fact, and so I have several other teams that run themselves, I oversee them. And then I also oversee the operations for our branches. Well, I also am part of the ownership group within within the company too.

 

Leighann Lovely  03:17

Awesome. So you have a responsibility of obviously hiring, firing, bringing on your team building that team internally, so tell me a little bit about that.

 

Michael Creed  03:29

Yeah, that's exactly that's a big chunk of my job, in fact is is is the recruitment, as I like to call it sounds a lot better to me than recruiting. Right? But yeah, we do i There are all of those things. So we do have an HR department through our corporate office that will help us with the logistics and just making sure that we're doing it right. But ultimately, I am the one that's responsible for all of those things, disciplinary action to write. And, and building that network. So you know, when you look at the different parts of my job, not only is it the production part, like I mentioned, and then the team leads, but yeah, absolutely. The hiring, the firing the finding of individuals as well. So it's a it's a huge part.

 

Leighann Lovely  04:09

So you've also created and I mentioned that you you know, you've I met you the first time I actually met you, you were you. I saw you as a speaker. And and you talked about you know, the this formula that you've created to create an amazing client experience that has driven outstanding results. I want to focus on that for a little while. Tell me how this was created. And, you know, your kind of the vision that you had when you came up with this or that when it was designed and implemented?

 

Michael Creed  04:45

Absolutely. The mortgage business is chock full of coaching as is real estate and other types of businesses like that right and maybe even yours, it's that way too. And what happens in that area is we all have these great ideas and a lot of times it's a system or structure, something like that. And then you go to a conference, you're excited about it, and then you come back and you fail miserably at executing these things. And that is what we took was systems from places, you know, what we're doing is not new. You look at different organizations, different coatings, different programs that say do A, B, C, D, we've taken what we feel are the best of each of those things, and then ultimately executed on them. You know, so for example, our three form strategy, which is what I know, you've seen me talk about, that's our strategy for playing for three introductions, by the time of closing, so our clients know early on in the process that we want to, we have a goal of being introduced to three people who are looking to buy a house, sell a house, refinance a mortgage, or in renters that would want to know what their options are by the time of closing. And they know that early on, and along the way, we take care of a ton of small details, to make sure that these clients know that we're different. In the mortgage business, you can't go more than are in the in life, I feel like you can't go more than five minutes without seeing an advertisement for a mortgage, whether it be driving down the road, it's on all the gas pumps at the gas station, it's on your phone, it's in your feeds, it's everywhere. And so if we want to be successful in the mortgage business, we need to be different, we need to stand out, be different. And this allows us to do it the end of the day, if I could boil it down to one thing, we're treating the mortgage process, like the largest transaction of a person's life. And that might sound like ridiculous, right? Because it is and why wouldn't everybody do that. But most people who do mortgages, treat it like a transaction. And so we've really built a process and a client experience around making sure that we can scale the same process every single time for our clients, and also our employees. And really even people who might be potential employees of having a just a great experience and feeling like they're loved and like they're our only client.

 

Leighann Lovely  06:55

And that's awesome. And you're right, I get, I would say at least two to three calls a day of people who want to, let's talk about your your home, and it always starts off, let's talk about your home mats, and then they give me my address. And, you know, we would love to go over your mortgage and see what we can do for you. And it's gotten to the point where you know, I tried to be nice to him and go, you know, I, I really appreciate your phone call, but I'm not interested. And then they just keep talking and talking. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I've gotten to the point where I can't even be nice because it takes too much time and a hang up on him. So you go through this process with these individuals. And I am assuming that the majority of your business then comes directly back to you from individuals who have experienced this, because they're now referring their friends in because they've had such an amazing experience.

 

Michael Creed  07:50

Absolutely, with the client experiences that they're going to introduce people to us they know early on that we're looking for that introduction. And really what we do is we talk them through the process of how to actually do it. So we play for three introductions. By closing, as I had mentioned before, using our three firms strategy, our average is 1.9. So of course, we're definitely growing our business through that. And we truly try to get them to understand that we're looking for an introduction versus a referral, because the introduction one is less intrusive. And secondly, it's more, it's less salesy, that's what I mean by that. But it's also implies an action, right, a referral might mean just giving out a business card, you can't introduce people to me without actually introducing them, right. So we talked them through a process of how to make the introduction happen. And more than that, how to do it in the best way for both us and for the person they're introducing to us. Because, as you mentioned, the digital noise or the digital pollution, you know, it's kind of the word of the the times right now, right? The calls the text, the emails are out of control, I opt out of emails and texts constantly. And they just keep coming from different places all over the place. And I'm sure you and all your listeners are shaking their heads as they hear this. And we want to get through that noise. I don't want to blow these people up, you know, for example, the way that we used to do is have them give us a form at the closing. So that's their homework, to give us this form with three names, phone numbers and emails on it. And then we would reach out to those people. And a lot of times they swear at us after we call them four or five times because they're like, why are you bothering us to tell them you know that their brother connected us? And they're like, Oh, you're that guy. So we found a better way of having those introductions actually made as opposed to just the referral form, right. And it allows us to execute more. But also, the mortgage marketing machine is huge. And so still, sometimes we can even have that amazing clients experience. And I just found out today on an annual review call that I did, because we do those every year to check in with our clients that somebody had refinanced a few months ago and never even called us. And so that was very interesting because I know their kids names. In fact, I use them during the meeting, I know all the details, because part of our processes and make sure that we not only have that information, but execute on it and leverage it in time. And so sometimes we'll still miss them. And so that's where a close client strategy also really has to be coming into play. So not just the amazing client experience, it is still an amazing client experience. But it doesn't stop at the closing, which is typically when we get paid, it goes well beyond that. And sometimes we still miss it, even in a case like I just described happens. And thankfully, that's rare. But it definitely, definitely is a huge part of our business. I actually started in the mortgage business back in 2004, making phone calls for lead shops, just like what's happening, what you're talking about, and worked in about 26 States at that time, that was before personal licensing came into effect like it is today. And it's actually not the most gratifying job in the planet, because you never get to meet your customers, you know. And so, we've really moved away from that, and into a much more personal experience through what we do.

 

Leighann Lovely  10:59

Now, we've talked about this amazing client experience. And you've talked about gathering this information, knowing your clients, you know, their kids names, and, and, again, me coming from a sales, you know, world I understand, you know, some of that gathering of information, obviously, I'm in a completely different industry. So it's a very different, you know, cycle for me, but you gather some of this information, and how through that process, do you make these individuals feel special? What is it that really grabs them? Is it you know, hand holding them through it? What makes you stand out at the end to really make them go? Wow, this was this was amazing.

 

Michael Creed  11:45

That's a great question. And really, it depends on the engagement of the client. Some of them will fill are all about you format, which again, that's coming from coaching, that's nothing, it's not our thing, you'll hear all about you all over the place, but they'll fill it out completely, of course, we've modified it to make sure that the questions are what we want, we also are in a spot where we ask for it after they've already applied for the mortgage. So they already feel pretty vulnerable being that we'd have their social security numbers and assets statements and that kind of stuff in hand. So we ask a lot of details that might be a little bit harder to get in other settings. But we've already gotten through that privacy barrier with the client, but it depends on how they engage. So if a client fully fills it out, we're going to know things that lot of their favorites, a lot of things that they want to do fun facts about them, well know what they consider to be a great lending experience. And then that data is put into our lead management system where it's always available at our fingertips every time we talk to the customer. So the clients I did the interview for today mentioned something about being in their home until their oldest shot I'm sorry, their youngest child is out of the house. And so I said, are you talking about Margaret, haven't talked to these clients in over a year, but it's right there. And I know their kids ages and they didn't seem shocked that I remember their kids name, but I'm confident that they were like, How in the world do this guy remember my kid's name from a year ago? Right? That's an example of what I'm talking about. It's the little things but there are other things along the way. You know, when we are when we're talking to the client early on, we understand what their theme is or their why behind buying the house. We're going to develop that with them. And we get the details and we listen intently. And every so often, we're gonna remind them that they're one step closer to that goal. Now there's a family we had helped a few years ago, that wanted to move out of the city into a safer neighborhood because their their son was riding his bike more and more. And he wanted to get farther and farther from home and mom wanted to stop worrying. The client we did a not a review, but an actual buyer console for just today. She's buying a new house in a different area because she wants to be able to run a loan she likes to run but she can't feel comfortable running alone where she lives right now, those kinds of things, we're going to remind them along the way that they're one step closer to getting that safer home one step closer to that bigger yard. One step closer to whatever it is that their goals are. We're also going to execute on little things like their favorite candy. If we know that they will always get a note in the mail with a box that we used to do it live but we've with the pandemic, we've moved these the pandemic caused us to learn a better way. And zoom is where we're doing most of our buyer consults today because we have the same conversion rate face to face on on screen as we did in person but allows us to get better at doing those we're faster at them and of course nobody has to drive to our office so we typically don't see our clients until the closing for the first time in person these days. Prior to the pandemic we would have their favorite candy for them when they came to the buyer console now we will ship it to them with a note in there in the in the mail envelope that says you know it's an personalized note with their name written by hand basically says Leanne we look forward to showing you how sweet the mortgage process can be. So the message is the same all the time. But the candies are different every single time. So based on what they told us their favorite candy would be doing that we have to modify that isn't this summer If we don't want to send chocolate in the mail, it gets a little bit messy. But that's an example of it. And along the way, we're going to personalize as many things as we can, our entire team understands this concept. And, and always has that data available. We do a lot of mortgages. Last year, we did 470 transactions, we need to know a lot of detail and have a system to do this to do it well, and that's part of it, too. So behind the scenes, there's a very built out system to make sure that we can do this well and quickly with the volume that we're doing

 

Leighann Lovely  15:34

right now. And by the way, my favorite candy is Lindahl. So if you feel the need to, No kidding,

 

Michael Creed  15:42

no, love it, love it.

 

Leighann Lovely  15:44

So that's awesome. Those fine details, people, people leave details about themselves in every conversation they have. And often they forget that they've even left those details, you know, out to the public. So for somebody to pick up on those, those very subtle, you know, that subtle information that's available, and then to, to capitalize on, I don't think capitalize is the right word, but to turn that around, and to be able to, you know, offer those little things that are just going to kind of make them feel special, and make them feel known. And, you know, yeah, special in in any way is, is important because one of the most stressful things in life is to go through the mortgage process, the buying process of a home, it's it is one of the biggest thing, it is the biggest thing that you're ever going to buy. I mean, you're putting there, and you're right, all of the private information that you're putting out there is, it's insane. I've done it a couple of times now. And it's it's very, you know, you feel like you're standing in a room naked, and everybody's like, okay, let's pick this apart, let's examine everything, because that's what you know, you have to do in order to get a loan, because it's a huge loan. So it's awesome that you're, you know, you're making that you're making that person feel comfortable and feel special during that process. So now, you mentioned your team, people are trained on this, how do you go about making sure that your team is trained and understands this process?

 

Michael Creed  17:25

For the most part, our templates are built to drive the user of those templates to have to think so for example, in a template that's going to go up for say, a conditional approval, it's going to start with congratulations, you're one step closer to and then it says in all caps, insert theme here. And so that means they're going to have to look in the lead management system, find out why the person is buying a house and then craft in their own words, that sentence. And so they're prompted throughout the process to do that. And some are better than others. In other words, some get it far better than others. And along the way, as I see them executing or not executing well, I will just gently coach them, you know, story I could tell you happened to be our office manager for a while my office manager was also my mother She has since retired, we had a client who wanted to do, they told us their favorite candy was extra dark chocolate Lindor truffles, and we're doing a class that was actually a real estate office class. So it wasn't a client but a business partner because we don't I mentioned that we do this for our employees and our customers. We also do it with our business partners that we work with regularly. They just help them see that we're different from time to time. We'll try to do it we got it there's there's regulations, we have to play with it within right stay within those rules. But you know, some chocolate is not a big deal. When we know it's their favorite. And so this one was mentioned extra dark chocolate Lindor truffles. And when the package came back to the office for me to do what I need to do with it, it was just dark chocolate Linda truffles. And she had mentioned that's close enough. And so then at that point, we have a conversation about how it's not it's either if someone's that specific where they say extra dark chocolate Lindor truffles, you have no option but to get them extra dark chocolate Linda truffles now if they just say they like chocolate, you can get anything right as long as it's chocolate and not a Snickers bar or something like that. Because that has chocolate in it but it isn't chocolate. So it the nuances like that, we just have to train in it as as we can, because you never really know how it's going to come up. But if the if the user of the templates the person in the system that's doing that part of the job, whether it's pre contract, post contract, post closing whatever that might be, they they are prompted pretty easily to do the best with that and then the salespeople they know that information is valuable so if they're on their A game when they're in the in the system making their calls, they're going to have a right there and be in the record so that they can easily see what we have?

 

Leighann Lovely  20:02

Well, and that's it, I would think that it's got to be kind of fun to, you know, this is my personality, I feel like it's kind of fun to be able to like, oh, wow, I get to, you know, order this or I get to put, you know, this package together whatever it might be. Yeah, I would think that would be kind of fun. And I love doing that kind of stuff I love, you know, sending little gift baskets to my clients, or hey, you're appreciated that kind of things, and for you would be clients. And so I would assume that, you know, some of your team really enjoy doing that. And maybe some of your team. It's just like, Okay, it's just the thing we do.

 

Michael Creed  20:45

Yeah, a lot of our a lot of our team members actually utilize my wife, she's, that's her, my wife's works for the company, as well as for the branch. And that's her primary job is to procure a lot of these things for us. Not the candy, but the rest of it, the stuff that we do later in the process. And they enjoy that because they don't have to do it. You know, I actually, I don't enjoy that process to find those things, either. But it is fun to give them but finding them is different, right? And so, you know, and really, and I think that it takes a very thoughtful, not necessarily stressed out person is in the loan officer thing. I don't know if that's necessarily a term, but I like to use it is very complicated. You know, I've been doing this for almost 18 years. And still, every single week come across something I've never seen before, my most recent example was just yesterday, right? And so it's stressful in that area, because you again, are dealing with the largest transaction or person's life, you want it to go smooth. And you know that everything relies on that experience being amazing from start to finish. And so I don't have a lot of free brain space to figure out what the gift might be. Unless the client makes it obvious, then we would pass that along to Lynn. But the fact is, some people do love it. But everybody loves getting the gift. And we track what we're when this would be coming to the thank you gift at closing. We track that. So we know what's in the package. When they open it. We can we're not surprised just the same because I might not have picked it out. But they love getting those and having that done. Absolutely. It's fun, for sure for everybody. Right?

 

Leighann Lovely  22:21

Okay, so now you've mentioned that your mother worked with you, your wife works with you. So now I've got to ask like, Do you have any other family members working with you?

 

Michael Creed  22:34

Do you not so the reason that my mom actually landed here was because I had hired a mom was an assistant to Teresa, who is my primary assistant. And so I had hired Teresa as a loan officer who's before she decided to move into my primary pre approval expert role. And so my mother was actually wrapping up kind of the tail end of her career at the bank that Teresa was at, and she was actually Teresa's assistant. And then our office manager, front desk person had resigned. So I just brought my mother over for a couple years. And I learned a lot through that process. She's not technically savvy at all, and I am the exact opposite of that. I'm also the one where I just like, just think about it and then do it Don't Don't make me write you 100 page manual and how it goes. So it was stressful for me to have that happen. But on the same note, the person who had left the position was the exact opposite of that was really good at getting things done, but really bad at people skills, like she would intentionally make the coffee late in the morning because she knew it really irritated somebody she didn't like, my mom was the exact opposite of that. And that being sweet and loving to everybody. They loved her. They called her the office mom, but at the same time. So that was good for morale, but there wasn't much work. And my wife, she was like an experiment would be the best way to describe that with assistance, like what does that look like? So she is my first ever assistant, she helped us with the loan process. She hated it. She felt like she wanted people to get their loans more than they wanted them to get their loans. And then because like you mentioned, you know, it's a stressful process, you use the term naked. I would normally say that too. But I wasn't sure if you're cool with it. But now that I know you are that what I would say is you know, people have already been fully exposed or naked. When we ask them for the information on the all about you. That's typically what I'd say. But now that we're cool, and we can talk like that, that's good.

 

Leighann Lovely  24:36

Using that what's not talked about? Actually, you know, anything beyond that.

 

Michael Creed  24:40

I know what you mean, I know what you mean, we're good. But that is a that is a process that I think people would hate and my wife did not enjoy chasing that at all chasing those documents. Like why do I want you to get your loan more than you, you know, like, that's kind of her very clear, you know, get move a mindset that she has. And so she she has gone from being an active role in loan processing went in loan process went into actually a support role in processing for a while. And that she found really stressed her out because she ultimately was feeling the weight on her shoulders of getting these people out of the houses on time. And if something was looking ugly, she couldn't do it. And she had always found that behind the scenes is exactly where she wants to be, where the time is not, you know, it's not if she misses a getting a closing gift on time. It's not the end of the world, though, she's pretty good about making sure it happens. But ya know, other family members know a lot of family, you know, we do have other teams that have relations, a lot of our people know everybody, in fact, every single person, but one that works in my branch, has been referred to us by somebody else, sometimes there's been relations. So

 

Leighann Lovely  25:49

that's, that's fun. Well, that means that you have an environment where people, you know, for, if you have employees who are referring people that they know that they love in that means that you have a company that people want to work at, which means that you have a great culture there. And, you know, if you are able to have a great culture, and create an awesome experience for your clients, you're clearly doing something, right. I mean, it's sad to say, but there are a lot of companies out there that can't do either one of those things. Sure. And, you know, to have both of those down. That's awesome.

 

Michael Creed  26:30

It's about being intentional and doing the work, you know, I'll stand on stages, whether it be you know, be the large stages, like what you've seen me speaker talk about coming here on a digital stage where, you know, the audience size could be massive, right. And as as, as you grow, and tell people what we do, because it I know that most people won't do it, the work, you have to put the work in to make this work, you have to put the work in to make anything, you can't be great. Just sitting around, you know, sometimes you can figure something out, or you can set it and forget it. But you know, that's kind of the quintessential American dream, right? And you see that stuff on social media from time to time. But that's because before you got to that place, there was you know, lots of hours of work, right? And that's, that's where it comes in. But yeah, you have to be intentional to do the work in all those areas.

 

Leighann Lovely  27:21

Right. And I've heard that, you know, this season, I have heard multiple people use that word, that one single word, intentional, it's a simple, you have to be intentional about what you want your actions, the things you want to change. I mean, that's it's a simple, one word kind of explains it all. And so, well, you didn't have a straight path to where you are. Right now. You've you've kind of gone through, you know, little, you know, valleys and hills and mountains. I said that completely wrong, but you know, it doesn't matter. Anyways, I'd love to hear your story of of where you are, and how you landed here.

 

Michael Creed  28:09

Yes, definitely. mountains and valleys, no doubt about that. And usually, they were pretty big ones. I mean, the, the fact is, is that the mortgage industry is one that pays well, when you do well. And when I started in 2004, it was before all the rules were in place that they are today to try to protect the consumer in some ways that they, they needed to be right, they need to be protected from the lenders and the loan officers in some ways. And so my first year in the business, I was in my mid 20s. And and came fresh out of college and had a six figure commission income. And that was right, that was great. I was on the mountain started with the mountains, right. And we were on the mountains for a while. And and then eventually, the housing market crashed. And that faucet turned off so fast. I don't know that we would even say I went from the peak to the valley, I'm pretty sure it was peak straight over the cliff to the valley, and how that all came about. And we went from having business coming out of our ears to nothing. We're actually in a similar cycle two that right now it's not as dramatic as it had been. But coming out of the pandemic where the rates have been crazy low, the lowest ever in the recorded history of mortgage rates and housing frenzy like nothing to now we're we're in we're seeing record inflation and rates rising faster than they ever had. If you look at the history of data going back to 1971 and never risen as fast as they are now. So we're kind of getting into that. It looks like a mountain on the on the rate graph, but really it's a valley. But the difference is is is that along the way, we came from being a commodity or I and my team and our business model came from being a commodity like I said, you can get a mortgage anywhere. I mentioned that earlier, to being value adds to our business partners, to our staff and our team members, even people outside of the industry that we might not necessarily work with every single day, but still could use some of our concepts to be better. And, and then of course, our clients right so that they keep coming back over and over, or they send us their family, their kids even sometimes happens now, right as as as the career progresses. And so that definitely smooths the roller coaster ride that the market can create. If you're being transactional all the time. Does that answer your question?

 

Leighann Lovely  30:29

Yes. So in 2004 it so you've been in the industry since 2004? Correct. And never wavered from the industry.

 

Michael Creed  30:40

Right.

 

Leighann Lovely  30:41

So you've, you've you, wow, okay, so you wrote it out? While many people in your position, we're running for the hills, you just jumped on your surfboard and went over the cliff and hoped that not your surfboard, your your, what do you ride down mountains, I know, there's some type of boards. You just, you just decided, hey, I'm gonna jump on my snowboard. And I'm gonna see if I, if I actually hit something at the bottom of this cliff, and you kept riding that roller coaster. And as we all know, that, you know, no matter what things eventually do bounce back. But wow, that's, that's intensity.

 

Michael Creed  31:27

It is it was a lot and it wasn't easy. You know, I know that your question of the season is, if you could is this if you could go back and to your younger self and your your, your your younger self advice? When would you go back to? And what advice would you give yourself? That's the question of the season. And the answer to that is really a follow up to your statement that you just made, I would have gone back to that person who was in his mid 20s, making crazy amounts of money, he came from a background that was nothing like that, and tell him to not spend every one of those dollars, the money was coming in just as going out just as fast as it was coming in. Right. And then, like you mentioned the cliff. And what my surfboard slash snowboard stopped on was to the point where I had a rental property tenant stopped paying the rent. And then that's when the faucet had shut off. And I mentioned that earlier, the faucet had shut off already. And I had gotten to the point where I had a Rolex in my closet that I had won for being the top producer a couple of years earlier, I never wore it, I'm not a fancy watch kind of guy, I will typically damage them in whatever things I'm doing with my activities, like rock climbing, for example, will really ruin a watch and learn that the hard way, I never worked, I had to pull that closet out or that that that Rolex out of my closet and sell it on eBay, to keep myself from missing a payment. Like that's how bad it was right? Like, literally one month away from the house of cards being completely blown over that I don't. And so the advice would be, and in fact, I've been telling my team this regularly for the last two years as we were through the pandemic making more loans than we've ever made before, which of course means more money than ever before, that if they're not saving most of their money right now, they're crazy, because it's going to stop and it's going to be ugly. And we're there right now. And so that would be the younger, that would be the advice, I would have done things way different back then, from a financial perspective, to to live wisely within that because not only had I been spending all that money, I continued to use credit cards for a while afterwards expecting you to come back quickly and got myself almost into $100,000 in debt, with credit cards outside of my mortgage and my car loans and all these other debts that I had, because that's just how I lived debt servicing that ultimately put us on a path where we had about, I think it took us seven or eight years to climb out of that. Because while I really wanted to file bankruptcy. So we see that stuff all the time, right? That the laws are there for a reason to help people get a new start when they need to. But I couldn't wrap my head around doing that when I bought all those things that I didn't really need. And so we really we mean my wife and I, cuz she's been along for this whole ride. We've been married 21 years, the that we really had to hunker down and completely change everything and move from a space of spending all the time to paying back all that debt and saving at the same time and it took a very long time to do it. But that would be the advice that answer your question of the season for sure would be that.

 

Leighann Lovely  34:36

So thank you for sharing that but I'm going to wrap this I'm going to I'm going to sum all of that up so instead of so here's what you're in essence saying instead of riding the surfboard and have the surfboard habit we're at a mountain Do you have a surfboard? So Zen of riding the damn board down you should have put On parachutes are parachutes, and slowly gone down.

 

Michael Creed  35:05

But yeah that's That's exactly right having having a parachute is it would have been would have been that safety net that makes this, these droughts that much easier. There's no doubt about that.

 

Leighann Lovely  35:17

And I appreciate you sharing that because you know, a lot of people, and, and hey, I'm I'll be perfectly honest around that time, I ended up having to file for bankruptcy, but I did not have a savings I did not have. I was, I had recently graduated with my college degree, I was working in corporate HR, and I got laid off, and from there it was laid off, get a job, layoff people let get laid off myself, and eventually it was just, uh, every time I got a new job it was for, I think what I started, I was making nearly 60,000 a year with a new degree, and then it was get a job get laid off and get 5000 Less get laid off and get another 5000 loss. And eventually, it was like, Oh, my gosh, I'm making, you know, $35,000 a year, and I was making almost 16 it was like, how am I going to survive? I mean, and I just just graduated with $100,000 in student loans.

 

Michael Creed  36:23

Right? Yes. And that, that, like I said, those rules are there for a reason? I don't I don't I don't ever think poorly of someone that uses it. I think it's like it's there for a reason. But you're absolutely right. You know, and I that's the stance that I took was just me trying to wrap my head around it because it wasn't an educate. I mean, I had student loans too, don't get me wrong, really, the credit cards were what got me it was almost $90,000 Like I said, in credit cards, if that means I bought $90,000 of stuff I didn't need, like, you know, whether it be eating out or you know, cocktails or junk that I don't you know, clothing, whatever it might be. Right. And so that was for me, it was it just I couldn't do it.

 

Leighann Lovely  37:07

You know. And I had I had I actually had contacted every single one of my and I have very small amount and contacted every single one of my debtors. And I said, I am I'm at a point where I cannot pay my bills. I had insurance on one of them that if I had gotten to that point that they would cover me, there was only one holdout I had $3,500. And it was through a bank and I will not name the bank. I said I cannot pay it. I want to make good on this. I don't want to have to file bankruptcy, but I cannot make my payments. Will you work with me until I'm back on my feet? And they said no. If you don't make your payment, we are going to be forced to sue you. And I went, You gotta be kidding me. Every one of my other debtors are willing to work with me. And they said, Sorry, it's our policy. And that was at the point where I said, I have no choice, but to file for bankruptcy. Then you do it over $3,500

 

Michael Creed  38:05

Surprise me I live and breathe in that industry as I do. Right. So lots of lots of rules that we have to follow. But right. And I say That was sarcasm, of course there's there are a lot of good ones don't get me wrong, but there are some head scratchers for sure. Where it would make sense to just do something that makes sense.

 

Leighann Lovely  38:24

And, Well it's, again, their, it's their corporate policy. And you know, once a month, they take all of their non payers to court all at the same time. It's just polished. I get it, you know, this is the way the world works. But anyways, tangent. So we've answered the question of the season, we have a couple of more minutes, you talked about your wife working with a company now here's, here's something I know about you that I would love, just to briefly touch on, because I am all about, you know, work life balance, I'm all about, you know, making sure that we have, you know, we do what we love, we, you know, have that that balance in our life and that we're able to walk away and enjoy life because we don't wake up in the morning saying, hey, I want to live to work. Rather, we work to live. And you have been very vocal about the you know about your family about you know that you set boundaries, and you have date night set with your wife, tell me about you know, the the philosophy behind your work life balance and how you've income to make sure that you set those boundaries for yourself.

 

Michael Creed  39:35

So my natural bend is to work all the time. That will be my default. If I have nothing else to do, I'm going to work always. And I think that that's probably I saw that in my dad. In fact, I didn't see him much growing up because he was working all the time. So I've tried to be intentional and again back to that word of in parts of my life. And so a lot of the things that I do are in first, right so I have priorities and I know what they are My faith is number one, and I need to be, I need to make sure that I'm reading the Bible. Every day. I don't hit it every day but I hit it most my wife is second my family and then my my work, which means my customers, my staff, the whole nine yards. And so and and part of being able to be who I need to be for all those things is also making sure that I'm feeling good. I'm in the best shape of my life. Right now, for example, because I finally figured out that working out is what keeps my brain clear. I figured that out, like four years ago, I am in my 40s. And I figured that out four years ago, I figured a lot of things out in the last say seven ish years about the activities that I do today, that really helped me to thrive. And so there's not just the date night, there's a lot of things every morning I wake up, the only day that I do not days that I do not work out are Sunday mornings, and Wednesday mornings, otherwise, I work out every other day, first thing in the morning. But before I even do that, I will meditate it and also done some my Bible reading my devotions for the day. And then I work. And I generally will work until around six or seven at night, I usually get home between six and seven. I'll hang out with my family for a little bit. But they're teenagers at this point. So they're gone half the time. And so I often have to work a little bit more when I get home. But in the day, that's a day that I don't have something in the evening, which is really only a Monday and some Tuesday. So every other Tuesday I'm leading our community group. Every Wednesday, I'm involved in our youth group every Thursday is date night. And then by Friday, I'm exhausted. So I usually go to the sauna. perspire has their their their Infrared Saunas nearby, I'll stop there on the way home and just recharge, and then, and then I'm home. So all of those things are about having those place cards and all of my schedule rotates around those date night doesn't get moved, it's non negotiable. If anything, I might show up a little I might meet my wife that's at 630. Or she might come to somewhere where I'm if I'm at a networking event, but it's does it's non negotiable. Youth Group is non negotiable during the school year in the summertime, it's more flexible, because that's the agreement with the the leadership team, you know, but I still tried to get the most tanks, a lot of fun. It's nothing, nothing like hanging out with a bunch of teenagers to feel like I'm in my 20s again. So there's there's a lot of those things that are going on. And it comes back to the intentionality is that there's non negotiables. And sometimes things have to wait. You know, a perfect example of that was you and I meeting up for lunch, it almost took me almost a month to get back to a date a while back the date that we can meet for lunch, because there's a group of things that just have to sit there until I can get to him. Just yesterday, I reached out to somebody, it's now June. We're recording this in June. I hope that's okay to say that the they email me about having lunch in April. And I just hadn't gotten to it right. And so there's importance in priorities, and we have to figure out what those are. And it can't be work. Because if you do that eventually then everything around you go sour and you don't have importance. You know, none of those things I was talking about are moneymakers for me, but they keep my brain in a place where I can be my best me when I'm here. It also forces me to be more efficient. I still work about 55 hours a week, I track that I report back to my team every for every day, my personal production team and my whole branch every Friday what I've done, there's a lot list of activities, and I work a lot. There's no doubt about that. But I still get all those other things done. And it's about being intentional and never making excuses.

 

Leighann Lovely  43:34

And that's awesome. As long as you're happy with the hours that you work as long as your family is happy with the hours that you work in the time that you spend with them. There. It's absolutely there's nothing wrong with that. It I mean is. It's different for every single person, right? Yeah. And my husband will sometimes tell me you work too much. And I'm like, Well, I I don't work. I put in my 40 hours, 40 plus hours. That's not why I put in, you know, a lot of hours that my day job. And then I spend I spend a great deal of time. And he's usually when my family is sleeping on my podcast because it's my passion project. It's I enjoy it. I love it. It's something that you know, I it clears my head, I have fun with it. I have a four year old so I do it when she's sleeping. She goes to bed at 730 at night. And I also have a date night because those those are all things that are extremely important to the the overall wellness. My overall mental wellness, my overall health, wellness, the balance that we find and you've clearly found a balance that works for you. i You know, it's just it's the people who Oh, I work 70 hours a week and you know, look at me be proud of me. Well, what where's your life?

 

Michael Creed  44:49

Right? I smiled when you mentioned that that's you know that we all have our own number because every one of these things that I do also has a goal and I in some things I want to be under goals, some things I want to be over the goal, right? And my goal for hours worked is 45. And I have yet to find a way to do that. You know, so it's 55 is more than I want to work. It's more than my family wants me to work. But it isn't. I mean, there were times where it was, like 70 hours. There's no doubt about that. But a lot of it comes down to just being able to say no, sometimes to or have people wait, I you know, it's just again, back to the priorities and intentionality.

 

Leighann Lovely  45:27

Absolutely. And you know, what, a lot of wildly successful people do have trouble saying no. While they are on their way to success, once they get to the top, they have figured out that not and I shouldn't say to the top. But once they've gotten to a certain level, they realize, Wow, I need to learn how to say no. Right? That's all part of the learning process. Absolutely. Michael, this has been such an amazing conversation. If somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?

 

Michael Creed  46:00

There's two ways to reach out one, if you're just looking for information on on who we are applying for a mortgage exctera, you can just go to my website, which is closewithmichael.com C l O S E W I T H M I C H A E L . C O M. I'm sure you'll have that mentioned somewhere as well, right?

 

Leighann Lovely  46:19

Yep.

 

Michael Creed  46:19

And if you want to text us, our team line is open for anybody. It's Area code 262-696-9048. That's 9048. Just shoot us a text. It's a bunch of us on that line, someone will get back to you pretty quickly, even outside hours in many cases. And it's a great way to just say hi,

 

Leighann Lovely  46:40

Excellent. Like I said, this has been such an amazing conversation. I really appreciate your time today. And all of that information on how to reach out to you will be in the shownotes

 

Michael Creed  46:49

Very cool. Thank you so much for your time. It was great to talk to you. We

 

Leighann Lovely  46:53

Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.

 

Website – www.closewithmichael.com  

Text line for information - 262-696-9048

Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcreed/

 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

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