The November episode of Full Disclosure is live, and yes, we recorded it with sniffles. Jim and Alayna came back from MBA Annual in Chicago with full notebooks, a lot of opinions and (like half the industry, judging by LinkedIn) a cold. We fixed that with a table full of soup and hit record anyway.

Mortgage Industry Vibe Check: Resilient Optimism, Robots and a Lot of Tea

If you want to know how the industry is really feeling, MBA Annual is where you go for the tea. This year’s verdict: grumbly but not giving up.

Rates are high and nobody knows if they’re headed higher. The MBA’s three-year volume projection looked a lot like a flat line. But the good companies are still finding ways to be profitable, just as they have since things turned in 2021 and 2022.

The big story was M&A. Folks at Optimal Blue told Jim they’ve never seen this much interest, and Optimal Blue picked up a CRM, uSherpa, during the show. With AI pressing on valuations, plenty of owners are eyeing the exit. Yet the people in that exhibit hall are clearly staying. If you showed up to MBA Annual, you weren’t leaving the industry forever.

That’s where resilient optimism comes in. It’s the title of the Michelle Gielan book Jim is reading, and it became the theme of the whole conversation. Jim admitted he’s most at home as a “wartime CEO” (paranoia included, tinfoil hat firmly on). Alayna didn’t sugarcoat the hard parts either: layoffs are real, and the women-in-the-workforce data shared at the Empower event gets a little more sobering every year.

So Tim asked the big question: how does a company, not just a person, practice resilient optimism? The team’s answers:

• Plan for the cycle. Mortgage is cyclical. A business plan that ignores that is negligent.
• Be transparent. Our CTO Dave leads a market update every month, good times or bad. Teams believe the optimism when they’ve been told the truth all along.
• Use AI to lift your people, not replace them. Before you rehire, rebuild the process.
• Build rituals. Jim shared the story of an ICU nurse who keeps a binder of thank-you letters for her worst days. What’s your version?

Also: the humanoid robots on the expo floor? When their eyes turned red, at least one of us was ready to evacuate the exhibit hall. Jim was ready to push one over. Very Philly of us.

Your turn: were you at MBA Annual? Tell us your biggest takeaway, or share the ritual that keeps your team optimistic when the market isn’t. Hit reply or drop it in the YouTube comments. Watch the full segment.

LodeStar x SettleWise Update: A Whiskey Library, a Road Trip and the Part-Time Pipeline

First, a huge thank you to everyone who came out to our industry event in Chicago. More than 1,000 people registered, and about 40% were lenders, a great mix for an event that welcomes industry partners too. And yes, the whiskey library was the busiest room in the building. Where else in mortgage are you getting one of those?

The show made something clear: we’re headed in the right direction. It sharpened what we’ll double down on and what we’ll let go. Hearing one of our largest clients rave about our team in person didn’t hurt either.

For Jim, it was a pinch-me moment. His first MBA Annual was ten years ago, with the cheapest Airbnb he could find and lobby meetings on the fly (plus a badge story you’ll have to hear for yourself). This year we had a team, a meeting room and an event people came to us for. One lesson: leave open time. Our best meeting of the week happened in a lunch line.

A few other updates:

• AI-powered follow-up. Jim turned his scribbled show notes into a sorted to-do spreadsheet on the flight home. A photo of a business card became a ready-to-send follow-up. The easier the busywork gets, the more human time is worth.
• Meet Ella, now our full-time admin. She audited the addresses of our nearly 300 clients and turned them into an interactive map, complete with a draft road trip. Our clients are concentrated from DC to New York, so if you’d like a visit in 2027, let us know.
• Future-proofing the workforce. Alayna spoke at MBA Annual on this topic, and the top question she got was where to find good young talent. Our answer: part-time roles that grow into full-time careers. Ella is our fourth part-time admin, and many of our team started that way. Handshake and college internships have worked for us, and we have a soft spot for servers and bartenders. You can train skills; you can’t train hustle.

Let’s connect: were you at our event? Tell us what you’d want to see next year. Want LodeStar to stop by on the 2027 road trip? Reply and say hi. Watch the full segment.

What Grinds My Gears + Jim’s Book Club: The Doubleheader

We’re not releasing an episode on Thanksgiving (that would be crazy), so this month you get both segments in one.

Gear #1: calling Gen Z lazy. Our Gen Z teammates are some of the hardest workers we have. They pick up new skills fast and take on any challenge. If there’s a real growing edge, it’s that they tend to avoid conflict. That’s fair for anyone starting out, and it’s a skill you build with time. Running a business means chasing invoices, hearing “no” and fielding complaints. School rarely prepares you for that.

Gear #2: Ubers that smell like dryer sheets. Imagine a head cold and a car that smells nice enough that you can’t complain but strong enough that you can’t breathe. The Uber stories kept coming, from a chef from Egypt sharing recipes on a ride that ended too soon to an Austin driver whose back door didn’t open from the inside. Terrifying.

Book Club: Own or Be Owned by Codie Sanchez. It’s about building a business that doesn’t consume your life. The book opens with an assessment: are you an owner, or a very highly paid employee? Thanks to the team, Jim landed solidly in the owner camp. His lowest score was having a clear, compelling vision for the team. Translation: stop trying to do three things at once.

Jim’s bonus gear came from the book’s world too: the “just buy a boring business” trend. It can work, he said, but buying a company and growing it are different skills. A small business that isn’t growing 10% to 20% a year is basically paying for the privilege of having a job. So maybe skip the vending machines Instagram keeps pushing. We did like one of Codie’s points, though: with under $100,000 in the bank, the best investment is in yourself.

We wrapped with a plea to conference planners: please, no more basements with low ceilings. And to everyone running a 5K before 8 a.m. meetings: we see you, and we’re a little scared of you.

Tell us: what grinds your gears this month? What should Jim read next? And what’s your worst rideshare story? Leave a comment on YouTube or hit reply. We’ll see you in December. Watch the full segment.