Aug. 6, 2026
310: Everybody's Talking About AI, But Nobody's Talking About Results
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
In this episode, I discuss how AI, while beneficial, can easily be a double-edged sword, hindering productivity and become more of a distraction than a solution, similar to to social media. Most brokers waste time experimenting with AI tools on trivial tasks while neglecting the core money-makers: prospecting, brand-building, and client relationships. So is your use of new technology actually improving your income and quality of life, or just keeping you busy?
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00:00:06 Ryan Wiley
Welcome to the mortgage game. I truly, truly believe that building a mortgage business, a successful one is like playing a game. There's winners, there's losers. There's certain things you try. Some of us are playing checkers while others are playing chess. I've had the ability to coach and mentor hundreds of mortgage brokers. I myself built a very nice business. So now I want to distill all that information, all the things I've learned from that and bring it directly to you in a simple to understand way. I hope you enjoy.
00:00:38 Ryan Wiley
All right. Welcome to the Mortgage Game Podcast. Whiteboard Wiley coming to you live from the Dodge Ram studio down at the beach. There is a five on the clock. That's a .m., kids. Coffee. We got the Venti Americano ready to go. I'm coming in hot today. I'm coming in controversial. I don't think I said that right. Controversial.
00:01:05 Ryan Wiley
Some words I can't pronounce well, okay? Just roll with me. You get the point. But I'm coming in on topics that you're going to be like, Ryan, you're a crazy man. Oh my God, Ryan, I don't believe. Hey, I hold strong opinions loosely, but there are certain things I see. I'm like the parent, like you can't pull shit over on me. Like I used to try to pull shit over on my parents. And now I look back and I'm like, oh, yeah, they knew exactly what I was doing. I'm like, I'm like, this is me with mortgage brokers. I'm the parent. I could see everything. I know the angles. I know what you're doing. I know what you're not doing. I know the stories you're telling yourself. I know the bullshit. I know a bullshitter when I see one. I can hear you sneaking out at two in the morning. I know you're throwing your vegetables in the garbage. You're feeding the dog food when I'm not looking. I know you didn't go to school. I know all the stuff. And this is what this is about. Some of it. So. We're coming into an era. We're already here, man. We've been here for a while. The era of distraction. And so we had like social media was the first big distraction that came out. And there's like massive amounts of awesomeness and social media. But there's also a bunch of things. Now, a lot of you are just like walking around like on social media all day, just consuming content. and not creating content, you're consuming it and you're just like, hey, why does my life suck? Well, that's a big reason is you're distracted. You're distracted over here, distracted over there, distracted over here. And one of the things I'm really good at is I have extreme discipline. So I do not get distracted on things, which allows me to go build phenomenal things in a short amount of time. And so now there's this new thing of distraction and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. It's AI. And I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on AI, but... It's different what I'm doing with AI versus what you're doing with AI, but it wasn't always this case for me, but I'm going to break some of this down for you because this will all make sense. I'm kind of like bobbly. I'm just putting a lot of shit out there right now. I'm not really making sense. There's a five on the clock, okay? This podcast is sponsored by Americana. This is not a, hey, don't use AI podcast. That's not that. I freaking love AI, but I also have discipline. The definition of discipline is doing things you don't want to do over and over again. It's not doing things you love to do over and over again. That's not discipline, right? So here's the question I have. And I've asked multiple, multiple people reach out and go, hey, like, what are your, how many descriptions you got? What do you have? People are using all the manises and the cloud code and they're trying to do this AI and they're doing it. I'm like, okay, cool. Is your quality of life better? Like, are you making more money or are you happier? Whatever you deem your quality of life. Like I'm thinking more, I'm putting my mortgage business, my mortgage CEO hat on. I'm going, are you making more money because of AI? Like 99 % of you are not. Are you happier because of AI? 99 % of you are not. Are you saving time using AI? Some of you are. AI, it's kind of like you go win the lottery. If you were an asshole before, the money's just going to make you more of an asshole. If you helped people. Well, now you have the ability to go help more people. It's just going to magnify the qualities of you as a human being. AI is the same sort of thing. Just because you built a thing, a lot of you are using AI to solve problems you don't have, or you're solving $3 problems instead of $30 ,000 ones. And that's the part that's just super funny to me. I've been pitched, I don't know, four or five things now with mortgage brokers who build stuff on AI. Now they want to go run a business. They have no... concept of what that actually means. And it's just really distracting them from running their own business and doing the basic things that make money. So my question to you is, has AI improved your quality of life? A lot of you are like, yeah, it's made me more efficient. I'm like, that's awesome. That's the purpose of it. It's to magnify the strengths in your business. But here's the other question. Okay, you're more efficient. So what are you doing with your time? So if you're telling me AI has now freed up five hours a week, let's call it. What are you doing with the five hours to improve your business or your life? Are you now working out? Are you now food prepping? Are you now meditating? Are you now training for a triathlon? Are you now spending that time? Because now you're more efficient here. Now you're doing more money making tasks and you're building a brand on social. You are. connecting with more referral partners you're going for more lunches with them you're doing more database mining you're now writing more email like what's the thing what is it doing and 99 % of you fucking not doing anything so like you're distracting yourself with these things because they're super shiny and they're awesome and it's great you're like oh my god I could build this in 20 minutes and it cost me six bucks and I got this and it could go and do this thing and it could look at the I'm like cool but where are you better off What's the thing? And these are questions I don't have the answer, but I'm going to tell you this. I would put a challenge out there. The challenge would be this. Me, I would come out of retirement. I will go and build a mortgage business that makes half a million dollars a year. You give me 12 months, it'll be a business that will never make less than half a million dollars a year after that. And I won't use AI to do any of it. And I won't work 40 plus hours. So now you get to go use AI and I'll let you, anyone doing 15, 20 mil a year, go use AI and then let's have a, let's compare our gross revenue three years from now. I'll crush you. I will absolutely crush you because you'll be so distracted fixing all these tiny little problems. And guess what? I'm going to come out and I'm going to build a brand. I'm going to go build a brand on social media. I'm going to wake up early. I'm going to pump out two videos a day, three stories a day on Instagram, cross post on Facebook. I'm going to build a YouTube channel, two video long form a week. I'm going to have a podcast. I'm going to go build the platforms with the traffic. I'm going to build my email marketing machine that's going to pump out 70 to 80 emails. I'm going to use automation to get email addresses from people off of social media. I'm going to talk to 10 referral partners and 10 clients a day, starting with 20 open. I'm going to do all of this. before 9 a .m. And I'm going to hire fulfillment and they're going to crush through all the files. And I'm only going to take on certain types of clients. So I'm going to build a webinar. I'm going to push everyone to webinar one to many. And I'm going to coach them in there. And then I'm only going to be very selective on who I work with after that. And I'm going to go build this business. And I'm not the best mortgage broker. I don't know all the tricks. I don't need to. I'm going to go build the marketing around it. And I will be up to half a million dollars in revenue within 12 months. I'm extremely disciplined and I'm not going to use AI for any of this. I already know, like it's my backup plan. Team's doing very well. So I don't need to do this and I won't be doing this, but I could do it. And I would beat any of you who are using AI. And there's always going to be the one, 2%, just like social media. Social came out and you leaned into it early. And now you have this brand on social and everyone's like, oh my God, how'd you do it? You're so full. No, I've been doing it for nine years. Not me personally, but like people who are crushing it there and built this long, big brand. They've been doing it for a long time because they jumped on early. They saw the opportunity. Same as AI. There's going to be mortgage brokers who jump in and they use it. But guess what? They use it to help with the money -making tasks. And so here's the difference. I personally use AI and I make money off of it. Have I made money on everything I've done? Hell no. I've wasted a lot of fucking time. But here's the thing, the time I've wasted, it's while I'm walking around the dog park for an hour, hour and a half. I'm at the dog beach while I'm working out. I have AI doing things and it's doing like these hobby things for me. Hey, I want to try this lead magnet. I want to build this thing. Like, hey, I'll put all the stuff and it'll just tell you how shitty your brokerage is compared to what I offer. Like all these things, I really won't move the needle in anything I'm doing. But they're like these little, I wonder if I could do this. I go down these rabbit holes, but I don't do it on a Tuesday at 11 a .m. I do it in the time where I'm doing other things because I can talk into my phone and I can just have the AI do it for me as I'm doing other things. So it's really not pulling away from anything in my business or my personal life. I'm just complimenting it with that. I'm trying things out. But where I do make the money on AI is I use it for leverage points on money -making tasks. I build tools for agents on my team so that they can go make more money because guess what? When they make money, I make money. So I'm extremely motivated to keep the coaching and the tools up for showing them how to close more files. Or if you want to be more warm and fuzzy about it, help more families, whatever, spin it however you want. We're in this game to make money. And I know that sounds really cold. Some of you are like, wow, you're so cold. No, no, no. I'm just cutting through the bullshit. I'm just going, we are here because you can work when you want, where you want, and make as much as you want. That's why we're doing what we're doing. Okay, so let's just... I'm not a cool person there. I get it. We're helping people. And yes, that's a huge byproduct of this, but I create leverage out of it. So if you are using AI to help with your prospecting, your money -making tasks, build a brand on social better than what you're currently building, 100%, you're good. That's going to play out very nicely. But a lot of you aren't. You're using it and all of a sudden you've lost three hours of your life. You've spent 20, 60 bucks, whatever. You've had this little thing pop out that you think is so cool. And I'm like, but have you done your opens? Have you done your video? Did you send your emails? Did you mine your database? Did you send out 10 sniper rifle emails today to people in your database? Did you send out 10 that you told them you looked for some, but there was no opportunity? I'm just letting you know. All these things I talk about over and over again here are the bones of your business. AI does not have to be involved in any of them. But you're being tricked. You're being bamboozled. by the big companies once again. And I'm not a conspiracy guy, but I'm like, what do you think Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and YouTube? Like they make money when you're on your device consuming other people's content. So they build the algorithm that way and they want you to stay hooked. It's like crack. We all know this. Your dopamine hit, you're getting it. Now AI is the next thing. We want to keep you in here and just keep building a bunch of dumb shit. And meanwhile, your business is like being lit on fire and it's going downhill. And they're like, I don't get it. And then you get FOMO because everyone else is doing all these awesome things. Or so you think, and I'll tell you right now, nothing is what it seems in this world. Nothing. If you think agent A over here is doing things and they're crushing it here and they're using AI here, I can tell you right now, their revenue isn't what you think it is. And how actual happy are they? They're not as happy as you think they are. For the most part, nothing is what it seems. It's smoke and mirrors, kids. Smoke and mirrors. That's what it is. That's what social media is. A lot of it. That's why I try to stay extremely authentic with raw footage videos and wearing a hat and a hoodie and screwing up and looking like an idiot half the time and saying dumb shit and all because it's like, that's the only way I know. That's just how I roll. And it's not smoke and mirrors. That's kind of like it is. You meet me in person. I'm the same person you see on this podcast or here on the podcast or see online. I'm the exact same person. So let's get back to our sponsor. Podcast is brought to you by Americano.
00:12:43 Ryan Wiley
So this is me telling you to like maybe self -audit yourself on your AI time because you're looking for shortcuts.
00:12:54 Ryan Wiley
looking for shortcuts. You're looking for band -aids to put on things, problems you have. Use AI to fix your $30 ,000 problems and that's it. Everything else is a complete waste of fucking time. I just told you the model to go build a half a million dollar revenue. And that's like netting. You'll net that. Like it's there. It's sitting there. Is it a lot of work? Oh, fuck yeah. It's a lot of work. But the whole model, I told you, which focuses on leverage and money -making tasks. I would have done before nine every day. I'd wake up at four. I'd have it done by nine. And guess what? Then I'd crush out four or five discovery calls. I'd figure out if they're my people. I'd get my marketing place for the next webinar that I'd run weekly. I would talk to fulfillment. And then I would probably peace out around noon. And I'd go do whatever else I wanted to do. And I wouldn't even log into AI. I would do that. And I've contemplated versions of this right now, but I'm like, man, as long as I keep my eye on the prize of building tools that give me leverage, that make me money. So does this make me money? Does it save me time? Or does it make me happier? It has to fall into one of those three buckets. And sometimes there's overlap, but if it doesn't, call what it is. It's just a hobby. It's like playing fantasy football. Complete fucking waste of time. I absolutely love it. I don't do it anymore because it's a distraction. It takes me off of my mission. So I shut it down. I shut down the distractions. Social media, distraction. I'm very rarely on social media. There's probably a way you can track on your phone what you are. But I bet you I'm in the low 1%. I don't know how to explain that. But 1 % of mortgage brokers, like, I'm like in the lowest. I'm not on. It's a distraction. Do I like it? Yeah, of course. It's cool. It's inspiring. As long as my feet is, has like puppies and comedy and cooking and sports stuff. And I'm inspired. Like, I'm like, yeah, if it has all the other shit, I'm like, yeah, I'm out. It's why I've taken out. Like I don't watch the news. It's why I don't like watch the TV shows. Like they're all distractions. It's like, I remember there was a Tony Robbins saying I did the walk on the fire. Yeah, I did that thing where you walk on coals. It's hotter than you think, but not as hot as you think. So I'll just say that. But I did this prior to being in mortgages. I was in commercial real estate and the boss paid for it. And I was like, sounds hokey pokey, but I'll go because it means I don't have to work today. And I'm 100 % commission and I didn't want to do things. So I was like, yeah, I'll go do that. So he paid a lot of money for me to go. So I went and I had one takeaway. It wasn't from Tony Robbins. It was from some other guy I had up there. And I don't know his name. I have no idea who he is. But the one takeaway was, and this was even before social was like big. It was just getting started. And his, I'm paraphrasing it, but, and I still think about this all the time and it keeps me centered. It pulls me back from the things of like, oh, this is, and I go, no, Ryan, what the fuck are you doing? Like, you're better than this. Get over here, back over on the mission. I'm like, okay. And I keep referencing what he said. And he's like, when you're on watching TV and you're on social media consuming, when you're doing those things. You are watching other people fulfill their dreams. You're watching the actors, the producers, the extras, the singers, the content creators, the influencers, the coaches, the ads, all the stuff. You're watching them live their life, fulfill their dreams. Well, you sit there and waste away. And I was like, whoa. And it changed my whole take. on where I put my energy. And from that day forward, I was like, fuck that. I'm not going to be the person watching other people's dreams come true. Well, mine aren't. Not doing that. I'm going to flip the script. And I did. And so it's been a work in progress, obviously. But that has always brought me back. And that's why I'm one of my superpowers is I'm extremely disciplined. extremely disciplined with my time. It's why I can get a lot of shit done in a short amount of time. And people are like, oh my God, you do all these things. You seem like you're everywhere. I'm not. It's just, you're operating at 30 to 40 % all the time. I'm operating at 90 to 95. Big difference. So I can get three, four, five X the output than you are. Like, think about that. And then if I compound that with I wake up early and I get shit done. And so like by the time everyone else is getting up, you're getting up at 7, 7 .30, have your coffee, read the newspaper, what shit, I don't know if people read the newspaper. Podcast is brought to you by Americana. Whatever the heck your thing is. By the time you roll in, you look at some emails, and then you get like, you talk yourself out of it. You're like, oh my God, this day is going to be crazy. You're changing your belief system for the day. And you're just like, oh, it's going to be, oh, I'm not going to be, I meant to do content today. I was supposed to do this. But now I got to do this thing. I put this fire and you start like talking yourself out of things. And by the time that, you know, it's 9 .30, 10, wherever, you're finally into the thing. Like, I've already done all the things. I'm like running laps around you. Like, I'm just like, because I'm not distracted by all the stuff. Just get to the thing. But I know what the things are. And that's the biggest difference. A lot of you haven't actually sat down and mapped out what the things are, right? Your main focus, you working on one file, putting out fires and two files is never more important than you building the foundations in your business every day. The money -making tasks, you're prospecting, you're building your brand. your database mining, your email marketing, your referral partner relationships, you having a dialed in client journey. Like if you get those, I think that's six things. If you get those six things, that's really all I ever talk about on our team are those six things. If you get those six things dialed in, just pick whatever life you want. So what are your things? Like if you're spending all your time on that and you're using AI in those things, phenomenal, amazing, awesome. It's going to help you a lot. But if it's not, or if you don't even know, or you haven't even went through this exercise, ah, then you're every day and you're just spinning your wheels. And before you know, it's five o 'clock and you're like, what happened with the day? And all you know is you look back your calendar and it popped up that you were supposed to do your opens or popped up that you're supposed to call your realtors or you're supposed to go on LinkedIn and do cold outreach, or you're supposed to like mine your database and look for, but you like snoozed it and went on because you're putting out fires on to earn five or $10 ,000 where this other stuff could make you hundreds of thousands of dollars when you compounded over two years. Ah, right? But you're telling yourself the story because you haven't actually sat down there and mapped out what you believe in. You're believed to be true. If I believe this to be true, all the other shit is noise. I have to work on the file. I'll work on the file. I'll get to it. It'll get done. But not the detriment of the stuff over here. And now... It's bumbled up. It's all in the air and you don't even know what you're doing. Your days come and go. They come and go. They come and go. And then Friday rolls around. Your business is no better off. And then now you're throwing AI and you're trying to fix the problems. You don't even know the problems you're fixing. And a lot of you are fixing $3 problems or problems you don't even have because it just seems cool. And you got this computer you think could work for you. But shit, it's a supercomputer. It is. But if you don't put it to work for the right things, then how are you better off? Are you making more money? Are you happier? He's saving time. Like what are the things? So you need to map out if you're going to go on AI, why exactly are you logging in? What are you doing? And is it part of the mission? Is it part of the six things or whatever your things are? Those are my six things. You might have different things, whatever your things are. So these are things I want to talk about. So this is me. Remember, I'm the parent. I see everything. I'm the teacher, the coach. I've seen all the angles. I was a mortgage broker. I was a new mortgage broker. I was a... okay mortgage broker, then did a lot of volume mortgage broker. And then I did a coaching. I did a lot of coaching and now I'm a team lead and now I coach and mentor. Now I build tools and I coach. And so like, I've seen all the angles. The only angle I haven't seen is I haven't been on the lender side, which I'm okay with, but I've seen all these things and I'm looking around. And so I've got some street cred on this stuff and I can see it. And it's so plain as day to me that y 'all. Yeah, I said that on purpose. Y 'all are distracted. So now that you know that and you're probably agreeing and you're probably going, yeah, Ryan, you're right. I'm like, you're walking around like zombies on your phone, 30, 40 % output, expecting spectacular lives or this is why I got into mortgages. But like, it's actually very simple. This is a very simple industry. It's just you're complicating the fuck out of it. And so strip it all away. strip everything away and build it brand new foundation by foundation. But what are your foundations? And if you go back and listen, I've broken this all down for you. I've given you a half million dollar or more model just sitting there. And some of you take it in and some of you, and I've got some really cool stories to share. I'm not going to do it on this one. It'll be too long. But people who have been in previous workshops of mine and have taken something and I just don't, I don't get to see the outcomes all the time. But they've come full circle now and they've come back and someone would join my team and they're like, and then they share what they've done. And they're like, it's all from that one thing. And I just did. And I was like, oh my God, really? I was like, oh, it's so cool. I'm like, yeah. They're like, oh yeah, yeah. Why isn't everyone doing that? I'm like, I don't know.
00:22:36 Ryan Wiley
oh, it's so cool. I'm like, yeah. They're like, oh yeah, yeah. Why isn't everyone doing that? I'm like, I don't
00:22:43 Ryan Wiley
We're off doing the thing. I don't know. But slow down. I know you're like, Ryan, it's not that simple. It's no, no, no, no, no. It is. To have an amazing life. It's way simpler than you think. but you have to be in the moment. And a lot of you aren't. You're not in the moment. And I can see it. I make a point of when I'm hanging out with people to not be on my phone. I want them to feel important. And it's also a respect thing. I'm not checking my phone, checking my phone, checking my phone, checking the email, the text. And then I see other people checking their phone. They're like on fucking social media. And I'm like, and they're in a group setting where we're talking. I saw this on the trip we were on. And I see it on all the trips I go on, like where I'm hanging out with Morningsburgers all the time. And then even people who aren't, and I'm like, wow. And you'll see if you ever hang out with me enough, you'll realize I'm not on my phone. There's certain things I get into and then I get out and it goes away. I'm not on my phone. I'm not distracted. I'm in the moment. And I'm giving that person the respect they need in the conversation. I want them to feel important. And I want to be involved. I want to figure out, are these my people? It's just like, can we go deeper on the conversation? Like I'm there. And I take that same mentality with me everywhere I go in all the things I do. And that comes over to family life and it comes over to work life. So in the moment of work, I'm not on the phone. I'm not putting around on AI. I go in with a fucking mission to make money or save time so then I can free up time to go spend it improving my quality of life personally or working on money -making tasks, points of leverage in the business. I'm not freeing up the time to just sit there to go on Instagram. And this is, I've said it before, and I'll say on this podcast, say it again, a lot of you are just smaller versions of yourself. You're not the highest and best use of your time. You're not the best version of yourself, both mentally, physically, whatever. You're walking around zombies. And the man got you. Social media got you. AI is now getting you. Distractions galore. And they're just filling their pockets with revenue off of you being zoned. And the problem isn't like, stop complaining about your kids on screens. It's pretty funny. The irony when you say, because I hear parents say, oh, my kids off screen. And I'm like, shit, how long you been on Instagram today? Or whatever. How long have you been? Like, come on. Like, what's that? Don't throw stone at glass houses thing. Kids, they don't know any different right now. It's like, you know better. They don't know better. You should know better. And it's also distracting you from doing the things you need to do to give the better quality of life to those kids. The kids are kids. They don't know any different. Like, obviously, it's a problem. It's a massive problem with kids. But, like, let's look in the mirror first. Like, now we're going, so we went from AI. But the theme of today's podcast is distractions. Right? And the quicker you can reduce the distractions, live in the moment and the task you're doing and do it with the best frame of mind and stay laser focused on things. Oh, my God, your world changes. It changes quite drastically very quick. I'm just way ahead of you on that. So I can see it. I can see the finish line. I'm never going to be at the finish line, but it's like I'm on that journey. But I also recognize this early on. And I realized that, man, and I started to see that. the game, everything slows down for you in life at some point where you just see things differently, different perspective. And it comes with obviously getting older and experienced and all that stuff. And I can see it that way right now. And I can just see, I can look around with special goggles on and I can see the opportunities that pop up where I should put my attention into. But I also recognized early on, I could see, I'm like, man, people have already figured this out. This should be easier than the way I've set this up. What am I doing wrong? And then I ate humble pie and I stripped everything back and built it up from the ground up. And literally sat there with a piece of paper and wrote it out. Like, okay, well, what are my beliefs? I believe I need this, this, this, this. Okay, I'm only going to go do that. I'm not going to do anything else. Why would I go do Y? I haven't finished X. And I'm going to do it until it's like a six or seven or 10. Then I'm going to move on to the next foundational piece. I'm just going to go build that. It's why I remove myself from Facebook groups. It's why I remove myself, you know, don't watch the news. I'm very rarely on social. It's like, I removed all these things. I removed negative people out of my life. I removed negative conversations out of my life. It's positivity where I go because the negativity just pulls me in other directions and takes me off my mission, right? So anyways, wanted to share this all with you. I hope this means something to you. You'll be seeing if you're on the email and whatnot. And we'll be putting an ad on here. But we're hosting, just laying the groundwork for this now. We're hosting a Build Your Client Journey in -person workshop with me and my team over your shoulder, helping you build your actual client journey, the backbone of your business. We're coming to Toronto. If this works out well, we're going to be coming to a bunch of cities across Canada and it'll be a regular thing. I think it's just a massive thing in our industry, not enough people talk about and not enough people actually have in their business. They're just fucking winging it half the time. So I'm going to lay out like... other mortgage brokers, client journeys for you. And then we're going to help weave that into yours or build yours from scratch or fix the one you have. And we're just going to do it together in a smaller setting. And so that's coming to Ontario. It's September 21st and 23rd, I believe. It's a Monday and a Wednesday in Burlington and Vaughan. And we might add more dates, but we're definitely coming to other provinces. So go check out on my website or find it somewhere. But there you go, kids. That's it. Appreciate the support. Love it. Thank you. Thank you for all the comments I get from this. I got a ton of people reaching out and I love that. Please keep doing that. Even if like, if it helps, you have questions, whatever, I'll get back to you. Much love kids. Okay. Enjoy your day. Peace out.
Welcome to the mortgage game. I truly, truly believe that building a mortgage business, a successful one is like playing a game. There's winners, there's losers. There's certain things you try. Some of us are playing checkers while others are playing chess. I've had the ability to coach and mentor hundreds of mortgage brokers. I myself built a very nice business. So now I want to distill all that information, all the things I've learned from that and bring it directly to you in a simple to understand way. I hope you enjoy.
00:00:38 Ryan Wiley
All right. Welcome to the Mortgage Game Podcast. Whiteboard Wiley coming to you live from the Dodge Ram studio down at the beach. There is a five on the clock. That's a .m., kids. Coffee. We got the Venti Americano ready to go. I'm coming in hot today. I'm coming in controversial. I don't think I said that right. Controversial.
00:01:05 Ryan Wiley
Some words I can't pronounce well, okay? Just roll with me. You get the point. But I'm coming in on topics that you're going to be like, Ryan, you're a crazy man. Oh my God, Ryan, I don't believe. Hey, I hold strong opinions loosely, but there are certain things I see. I'm like the parent, like you can't pull shit over on me. Like I used to try to pull shit over on my parents. And now I look back and I'm like, oh, yeah, they knew exactly what I was doing. I'm like, I'm like, this is me with mortgage brokers. I'm the parent. I could see everything. I know the angles. I know what you're doing. I know what you're not doing. I know the stories you're telling yourself. I know the bullshit. I know a bullshitter when I see one. I can hear you sneaking out at two in the morning. I know you're throwing your vegetables in the garbage. You're feeding the dog food when I'm not looking. I know you didn't go to school. I know all the stuff. And this is what this is about. Some of it. So. We're coming into an era. We're already here, man. We've been here for a while. The era of distraction. And so we had like social media was the first big distraction that came out. And there's like massive amounts of awesomeness and social media. But there's also a bunch of things. Now, a lot of you are just like walking around like on social media all day, just consuming content. and not creating content, you're consuming it and you're just like, hey, why does my life suck? Well, that's a big reason is you're distracted. You're distracted over here, distracted over there, distracted over here. And one of the things I'm really good at is I have extreme discipline. So I do not get distracted on things, which allows me to go build phenomenal things in a short amount of time. And so now there's this new thing of distraction and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. It's AI. And I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on AI, but... It's different what I'm doing with AI versus what you're doing with AI, but it wasn't always this case for me, but I'm going to break some of this down for you because this will all make sense. I'm kind of like bobbly. I'm just putting a lot of shit out there right now. I'm not really making sense. There's a five on the clock, okay? This podcast is sponsored by Americana. This is not a, hey, don't use AI podcast. That's not that. I freaking love AI, but I also have discipline. The definition of discipline is doing things you don't want to do over and over again. It's not doing things you love to do over and over again. That's not discipline, right? So here's the question I have. And I've asked multiple, multiple people reach out and go, hey, like, what are your, how many descriptions you got? What do you have? People are using all the manises and the cloud code and they're trying to do this AI and they're doing it. I'm like, okay, cool. Is your quality of life better? Like, are you making more money or are you happier? Whatever you deem your quality of life. Like I'm thinking more, I'm putting my mortgage business, my mortgage CEO hat on. I'm going, are you making more money because of AI? Like 99 % of you are not. Are you happier because of AI? 99 % of you are not. Are you saving time using AI? Some of you are. AI, it's kind of like you go win the lottery. If you were an asshole before, the money's just going to make you more of an asshole. If you helped people. Well, now you have the ability to go help more people. It's just going to magnify the qualities of you as a human being. AI is the same sort of thing. Just because you built a thing, a lot of you are using AI to solve problems you don't have, or you're solving $3 problems instead of $30 ,000 ones. And that's the part that's just super funny to me. I've been pitched, I don't know, four or five things now with mortgage brokers who build stuff on AI. Now they want to go run a business. They have no... concept of what that actually means. And it's just really distracting them from running their own business and doing the basic things that make money. So my question to you is, has AI improved your quality of life? A lot of you are like, yeah, it's made me more efficient. I'm like, that's awesome. That's the purpose of it. It's to magnify the strengths in your business. But here's the other question. Okay, you're more efficient. So what are you doing with your time? So if you're telling me AI has now freed up five hours a week, let's call it. What are you doing with the five hours to improve your business or your life? Are you now working out? Are you now food prepping? Are you now meditating? Are you now training for a triathlon? Are you now spending that time? Because now you're more efficient here. Now you're doing more money making tasks and you're building a brand on social. You are. connecting with more referral partners you're going for more lunches with them you're doing more database mining you're now writing more email like what's the thing what is it doing and 99 % of you fucking not doing anything so like you're distracting yourself with these things because they're super shiny and they're awesome and it's great you're like oh my god I could build this in 20 minutes and it cost me six bucks and I got this and it could go and do this thing and it could look at the I'm like cool but where are you better off What's the thing? And these are questions I don't have the answer, but I'm going to tell you this. I would put a challenge out there. The challenge would be this. Me, I would come out of retirement. I will go and build a mortgage business that makes half a million dollars a year. You give me 12 months, it'll be a business that will never make less than half a million dollars a year after that. And I won't use AI to do any of it. And I won't work 40 plus hours. So now you get to go use AI and I'll let you, anyone doing 15, 20 mil a year, go use AI and then let's have a, let's compare our gross revenue three years from now. I'll crush you. I will absolutely crush you because you'll be so distracted fixing all these tiny little problems. And guess what? I'm going to come out and I'm going to build a brand. I'm going to go build a brand on social media. I'm going to wake up early. I'm going to pump out two videos a day, three stories a day on Instagram, cross post on Facebook. I'm going to build a YouTube channel, two video long form a week. I'm going to have a podcast. I'm going to go build the platforms with the traffic. I'm going to build my email marketing machine that's going to pump out 70 to 80 emails. I'm going to use automation to get email addresses from people off of social media. I'm going to talk to 10 referral partners and 10 clients a day, starting with 20 open. I'm going to do all of this. before 9 a .m. And I'm going to hire fulfillment and they're going to crush through all the files. And I'm only going to take on certain types of clients. So I'm going to build a webinar. I'm going to push everyone to webinar one to many. And I'm going to coach them in there. And then I'm only going to be very selective on who I work with after that. And I'm going to go build this business. And I'm not the best mortgage broker. I don't know all the tricks. I don't need to. I'm going to go build the marketing around it. And I will be up to half a million dollars in revenue within 12 months. I'm extremely disciplined and I'm not going to use AI for any of this. I already know, like it's my backup plan. Team's doing very well. So I don't need to do this and I won't be doing this, but I could do it. And I would beat any of you who are using AI. And there's always going to be the one, 2%, just like social media. Social came out and you leaned into it early. And now you have this brand on social and everyone's like, oh my God, how'd you do it? You're so full. No, I've been doing it for nine years. Not me personally, but like people who are crushing it there and built this long, big brand. They've been doing it for a long time because they jumped on early. They saw the opportunity. Same as AI. There's going to be mortgage brokers who jump in and they use it. But guess what? They use it to help with the money -making tasks. And so here's the difference. I personally use AI and I make money off of it. Have I made money on everything I've done? Hell no. I've wasted a lot of fucking time. But here's the thing, the time I've wasted, it's while I'm walking around the dog park for an hour, hour and a half. I'm at the dog beach while I'm working out. I have AI doing things and it's doing like these hobby things for me. Hey, I want to try this lead magnet. I want to build this thing. Like, hey, I'll put all the stuff and it'll just tell you how shitty your brokerage is compared to what I offer. Like all these things, I really won't move the needle in anything I'm doing. But they're like these little, I wonder if I could do this. I go down these rabbit holes, but I don't do it on a Tuesday at 11 a .m. I do it in the time where I'm doing other things because I can talk into my phone and I can just have the AI do it for me as I'm doing other things. So it's really not pulling away from anything in my business or my personal life. I'm just complimenting it with that. I'm trying things out. But where I do make the money on AI is I use it for leverage points on money -making tasks. I build tools for agents on my team so that they can go make more money because guess what? When they make money, I make money. So I'm extremely motivated to keep the coaching and the tools up for showing them how to close more files. Or if you want to be more warm and fuzzy about it, help more families, whatever, spin it however you want. We're in this game to make money. And I know that sounds really cold. Some of you are like, wow, you're so cold. No, no, no. I'm just cutting through the bullshit. I'm just going, we are here because you can work when you want, where you want, and make as much as you want. That's why we're doing what we're doing. Okay, so let's just... I'm not a cool person there. I get it. We're helping people. And yes, that's a huge byproduct of this, but I create leverage out of it. So if you are using AI to help with your prospecting, your money -making tasks, build a brand on social better than what you're currently building, 100%, you're good. That's going to play out very nicely. But a lot of you aren't. You're using it and all of a sudden you've lost three hours of your life. You've spent 20, 60 bucks, whatever. You've had this little thing pop out that you think is so cool. And I'm like, but have you done your opens? Have you done your video? Did you send your emails? Did you mine your database? Did you send out 10 sniper rifle emails today to people in your database? Did you send out 10 that you told them you looked for some, but there was no opportunity? I'm just letting you know. All these things I talk about over and over again here are the bones of your business. AI does not have to be involved in any of them. But you're being tricked. You're being bamboozled. by the big companies once again. And I'm not a conspiracy guy, but I'm like, what do you think Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and YouTube? Like they make money when you're on your device consuming other people's content. So they build the algorithm that way and they want you to stay hooked. It's like crack. We all know this. Your dopamine hit, you're getting it. Now AI is the next thing. We want to keep you in here and just keep building a bunch of dumb shit. And meanwhile, your business is like being lit on fire and it's going downhill. And they're like, I don't get it. And then you get FOMO because everyone else is doing all these awesome things. Or so you think, and I'll tell you right now, nothing is what it seems in this world. Nothing. If you think agent A over here is doing things and they're crushing it here and they're using AI here, I can tell you right now, their revenue isn't what you think it is. And how actual happy are they? They're not as happy as you think they are. For the most part, nothing is what it seems. It's smoke and mirrors, kids. Smoke and mirrors. That's what it is. That's what social media is. A lot of it. That's why I try to stay extremely authentic with raw footage videos and wearing a hat and a hoodie and screwing up and looking like an idiot half the time and saying dumb shit and all because it's like, that's the only way I know. That's just how I roll. And it's not smoke and mirrors. That's kind of like it is. You meet me in person. I'm the same person you see on this podcast or here on the podcast or see online. I'm the exact same person. So let's get back to our sponsor. Podcast is brought to you by Americano.
00:12:43 Ryan Wiley
So this is me telling you to like maybe self -audit yourself on your AI time because you're looking for shortcuts.
00:12:54 Ryan Wiley
looking for shortcuts. You're looking for band -aids to put on things, problems you have. Use AI to fix your $30 ,000 problems and that's it. Everything else is a complete waste of fucking time. I just told you the model to go build a half a million dollar revenue. And that's like netting. You'll net that. Like it's there. It's sitting there. Is it a lot of work? Oh, fuck yeah. It's a lot of work. But the whole model, I told you, which focuses on leverage and money -making tasks. I would have done before nine every day. I'd wake up at four. I'd have it done by nine. And guess what? Then I'd crush out four or five discovery calls. I'd figure out if they're my people. I'd get my marketing place for the next webinar that I'd run weekly. I would talk to fulfillment. And then I would probably peace out around noon. And I'd go do whatever else I wanted to do. And I wouldn't even log into AI. I would do that. And I've contemplated versions of this right now, but I'm like, man, as long as I keep my eye on the prize of building tools that give me leverage, that make me money. So does this make me money? Does it save me time? Or does it make me happier? It has to fall into one of those three buckets. And sometimes there's overlap, but if it doesn't, call what it is. It's just a hobby. It's like playing fantasy football. Complete fucking waste of time. I absolutely love it. I don't do it anymore because it's a distraction. It takes me off of my mission. So I shut it down. I shut down the distractions. Social media, distraction. I'm very rarely on social media. There's probably a way you can track on your phone what you are. But I bet you I'm in the low 1%. I don't know how to explain that. But 1 % of mortgage brokers, like, I'm like in the lowest. I'm not on. It's a distraction. Do I like it? Yeah, of course. It's cool. It's inspiring. As long as my feet is, has like puppies and comedy and cooking and sports stuff. And I'm inspired. Like, I'm like, yeah, if it has all the other shit, I'm like, yeah, I'm out. It's why I've taken out. Like I don't watch the news. It's why I don't like watch the TV shows. Like they're all distractions. It's like, I remember there was a Tony Robbins saying I did the walk on the fire. Yeah, I did that thing where you walk on coals. It's hotter than you think, but not as hot as you think. So I'll just say that. But I did this prior to being in mortgages. I was in commercial real estate and the boss paid for it. And I was like, sounds hokey pokey, but I'll go because it means I don't have to work today. And I'm 100 % commission and I didn't want to do things. So I was like, yeah, I'll go do that. So he paid a lot of money for me to go. So I went and I had one takeaway. It wasn't from Tony Robbins. It was from some other guy I had up there. And I don't know his name. I have no idea who he is. But the one takeaway was, and this was even before social was like big. It was just getting started. And his, I'm paraphrasing it, but, and I still think about this all the time and it keeps me centered. It pulls me back from the things of like, oh, this is, and I go, no, Ryan, what the fuck are you doing? Like, you're better than this. Get over here, back over on the mission. I'm like, okay. And I keep referencing what he said. And he's like, when you're on watching TV and you're on social media consuming, when you're doing those things. You are watching other people fulfill their dreams. You're watching the actors, the producers, the extras, the singers, the content creators, the influencers, the coaches, the ads, all the stuff. You're watching them live their life, fulfill their dreams. Well, you sit there and waste away. And I was like, whoa. And it changed my whole take. on where I put my energy. And from that day forward, I was like, fuck that. I'm not going to be the person watching other people's dreams come true. Well, mine aren't. Not doing that. I'm going to flip the script. And I did. And so it's been a work in progress, obviously. But that has always brought me back. And that's why I'm one of my superpowers is I'm extremely disciplined. extremely disciplined with my time. It's why I can get a lot of shit done in a short amount of time. And people are like, oh my God, you do all these things. You seem like you're everywhere. I'm not. It's just, you're operating at 30 to 40 % all the time. I'm operating at 90 to 95. Big difference. So I can get three, four, five X the output than you are. Like, think about that. And then if I compound that with I wake up early and I get shit done. And so like by the time everyone else is getting up, you're getting up at 7, 7 .30, have your coffee, read the newspaper, what shit, I don't know if people read the newspaper. Podcast is brought to you by Americana. Whatever the heck your thing is. By the time you roll in, you look at some emails, and then you get like, you talk yourself out of it. You're like, oh my God, this day is going to be crazy. You're changing your belief system for the day. And you're just like, oh, it's going to be, oh, I'm not going to be, I meant to do content today. I was supposed to do this. But now I got to do this thing. I put this fire and you start like talking yourself out of things. And by the time that, you know, it's 9 .30, 10, wherever, you're finally into the thing. Like, I've already done all the things. I'm like running laps around you. Like, I'm just like, because I'm not distracted by all the stuff. Just get to the thing. But I know what the things are. And that's the biggest difference. A lot of you haven't actually sat down and mapped out what the things are, right? Your main focus, you working on one file, putting out fires and two files is never more important than you building the foundations in your business every day. The money -making tasks, you're prospecting, you're building your brand. your database mining, your email marketing, your referral partner relationships, you having a dialed in client journey. Like if you get those, I think that's six things. If you get those six things, that's really all I ever talk about on our team are those six things. If you get those six things dialed in, just pick whatever life you want. So what are your things? Like if you're spending all your time on that and you're using AI in those things, phenomenal, amazing, awesome. It's going to help you a lot. But if it's not, or if you don't even know, or you haven't even went through this exercise, ah, then you're every day and you're just spinning your wheels. And before you know, it's five o 'clock and you're like, what happened with the day? And all you know is you look back your calendar and it popped up that you were supposed to do your opens or popped up that you're supposed to call your realtors or you're supposed to go on LinkedIn and do cold outreach, or you're supposed to like mine your database and look for, but you like snoozed it and went on because you're putting out fires on to earn five or $10 ,000 where this other stuff could make you hundreds of thousands of dollars when you compounded over two years. Ah, right? But you're telling yourself the story because you haven't actually sat down there and mapped out what you believe in. You're believed to be true. If I believe this to be true, all the other shit is noise. I have to work on the file. I'll work on the file. I'll get to it. It'll get done. But not the detriment of the stuff over here. And now... It's bumbled up. It's all in the air and you don't even know what you're doing. Your days come and go. They come and go. They come and go. And then Friday rolls around. Your business is no better off. And then now you're throwing AI and you're trying to fix the problems. You don't even know the problems you're fixing. And a lot of you are fixing $3 problems or problems you don't even have because it just seems cool. And you got this computer you think could work for you. But shit, it's a supercomputer. It is. But if you don't put it to work for the right things, then how are you better off? Are you making more money? Are you happier? He's saving time. Like what are the things? So you need to map out if you're going to go on AI, why exactly are you logging in? What are you doing? And is it part of the mission? Is it part of the six things or whatever your things are? Those are my six things. You might have different things, whatever your things are. So these are things I want to talk about. So this is me. Remember, I'm the parent. I see everything. I'm the teacher, the coach. I've seen all the angles. I was a mortgage broker. I was a new mortgage broker. I was a... okay mortgage broker, then did a lot of volume mortgage broker. And then I did a coaching. I did a lot of coaching and now I'm a team lead and now I coach and mentor. Now I build tools and I coach. And so like, I've seen all the angles. The only angle I haven't seen is I haven't been on the lender side, which I'm okay with, but I've seen all these things and I'm looking around. And so I've got some street cred on this stuff and I can see it. And it's so plain as day to me that y 'all. Yeah, I said that on purpose. Y 'all are distracted. So now that you know that and you're probably agreeing and you're probably going, yeah, Ryan, you're right. I'm like, you're walking around like zombies on your phone, 30, 40 % output, expecting spectacular lives or this is why I got into mortgages. But like, it's actually very simple. This is a very simple industry. It's just you're complicating the fuck out of it. And so strip it all away. strip everything away and build it brand new foundation by foundation. But what are your foundations? And if you go back and listen, I've broken this all down for you. I've given you a half million dollar or more model just sitting there. And some of you take it in and some of you, and I've got some really cool stories to share. I'm not going to do it on this one. It'll be too long. But people who have been in previous workshops of mine and have taken something and I just don't, I don't get to see the outcomes all the time. But they've come full circle now and they've come back and someone would join my team and they're like, and then they share what they've done. And they're like, it's all from that one thing. And I just did. And I was like, oh my God, really? I was like, oh, it's so cool. I'm like, yeah. They're like, oh yeah, yeah. Why isn't everyone doing that? I'm like, I don't know.
00:22:36 Ryan Wiley
oh, it's so cool. I'm like, yeah. They're like, oh yeah, yeah. Why isn't everyone doing that? I'm like, I don't
00:22:43 Ryan Wiley
We're off doing the thing. I don't know. But slow down. I know you're like, Ryan, it's not that simple. It's no, no, no, no, no. It is. To have an amazing life. It's way simpler than you think. but you have to be in the moment. And a lot of you aren't. You're not in the moment. And I can see it. I make a point of when I'm hanging out with people to not be on my phone. I want them to feel important. And it's also a respect thing. I'm not checking my phone, checking my phone, checking my phone, checking the email, the text. And then I see other people checking their phone. They're like on fucking social media. And I'm like, and they're in a group setting where we're talking. I saw this on the trip we were on. And I see it on all the trips I go on, like where I'm hanging out with Morningsburgers all the time. And then even people who aren't, and I'm like, wow. And you'll see if you ever hang out with me enough, you'll realize I'm not on my phone. There's certain things I get into and then I get out and it goes away. I'm not on my phone. I'm not distracted. I'm in the moment. And I'm giving that person the respect they need in the conversation. I want them to feel important. And I want to be involved. I want to figure out, are these my people? It's just like, can we go deeper on the conversation? Like I'm there. And I take that same mentality with me everywhere I go in all the things I do. And that comes over to family life and it comes over to work life. So in the moment of work, I'm not on the phone. I'm not putting around on AI. I go in with a fucking mission to make money or save time so then I can free up time to go spend it improving my quality of life personally or working on money -making tasks, points of leverage in the business. I'm not freeing up the time to just sit there to go on Instagram. And this is, I've said it before, and I'll say on this podcast, say it again, a lot of you are just smaller versions of yourself. You're not the highest and best use of your time. You're not the best version of yourself, both mentally, physically, whatever. You're walking around zombies. And the man got you. Social media got you. AI is now getting you. Distractions galore. And they're just filling their pockets with revenue off of you being zoned. And the problem isn't like, stop complaining about your kids on screens. It's pretty funny. The irony when you say, because I hear parents say, oh, my kids off screen. And I'm like, shit, how long you been on Instagram today? Or whatever. How long have you been? Like, come on. Like, what's that? Don't throw stone at glass houses thing. Kids, they don't know any different right now. It's like, you know better. They don't know better. You should know better. And it's also distracting you from doing the things you need to do to give the better quality of life to those kids. The kids are kids. They don't know any different. Like, obviously, it's a problem. It's a massive problem with kids. But, like, let's look in the mirror first. Like, now we're going, so we went from AI. But the theme of today's podcast is distractions. Right? And the quicker you can reduce the distractions, live in the moment and the task you're doing and do it with the best frame of mind and stay laser focused on things. Oh, my God, your world changes. It changes quite drastically very quick. I'm just way ahead of you on that. So I can see it. I can see the finish line. I'm never going to be at the finish line, but it's like I'm on that journey. But I also recognize this early on. And I realized that, man, and I started to see that. the game, everything slows down for you in life at some point where you just see things differently, different perspective. And it comes with obviously getting older and experienced and all that stuff. And I can see it that way right now. And I can just see, I can look around with special goggles on and I can see the opportunities that pop up where I should put my attention into. But I also recognized early on, I could see, I'm like, man, people have already figured this out. This should be easier than the way I've set this up. What am I doing wrong? And then I ate humble pie and I stripped everything back and built it up from the ground up. And literally sat there with a piece of paper and wrote it out. Like, okay, well, what are my beliefs? I believe I need this, this, this, this. Okay, I'm only going to go do that. I'm not going to do anything else. Why would I go do Y? I haven't finished X. And I'm going to do it until it's like a six or seven or 10. Then I'm going to move on to the next foundational piece. I'm just going to go build that. It's why I remove myself from Facebook groups. It's why I remove myself, you know, don't watch the news. I'm very rarely on social. It's like, I removed all these things. I removed negative people out of my life. I removed negative conversations out of my life. It's positivity where I go because the negativity just pulls me in other directions and takes me off my mission, right? So anyways, wanted to share this all with you. I hope this means something to you. You'll be seeing if you're on the email and whatnot. And we'll be putting an ad on here. But we're hosting, just laying the groundwork for this now. We're hosting a Build Your Client Journey in -person workshop with me and my team over your shoulder, helping you build your actual client journey, the backbone of your business. We're coming to Toronto. If this works out well, we're going to be coming to a bunch of cities across Canada and it'll be a regular thing. I think it's just a massive thing in our industry, not enough people talk about and not enough people actually have in their business. They're just fucking winging it half the time. So I'm going to lay out like... other mortgage brokers, client journeys for you. And then we're going to help weave that into yours or build yours from scratch or fix the one you have. And we're just going to do it together in a smaller setting. And so that's coming to Ontario. It's September 21st and 23rd, I believe. It's a Monday and a Wednesday in Burlington and Vaughan. And we might add more dates, but we're definitely coming to other provinces. So go check out on my website or find it somewhere. But there you go, kids. That's it. Appreciate the support. Love it. Thank you. Thank you for all the comments I get from this. I got a ton of people reaching out and I love that. Please keep doing that. Even if like, if it helps, you have questions, whatever, I'll get back to you. Much love kids. Okay. Enjoy your day. Peace out.